


Satisfaction and Skating

by Incasa



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic), Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Check Please Big Bang, Crossover, F/M, M/M, Multi, i have never tagged a work on this website and welcome suggestions, serious ensemble cast syndrome, the crossover only i asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 16:32:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8453635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Incasa/pseuds/Incasa
Summary: Being the story of the first year at Samwell University of one Alexander Hamilton and his community, as told by the members of the Samwell Mens Hockey Team.





	1. Chapter 1: In Which Tadpoles Arrive for their Haus Tour

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaaaaah what is going on???? Why this time of year??? I suffer with upcoming exams and writing projects!!!
> 
> Find the art for this fic by the amazing setyourlazerstopew here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8443531
> 
> This is my first time participating in a Big Bang, so please tell me if I did anything in a weird way.

The morning after first skate with the new tadpoles, Bitty called with Jack and Shitty, sitting forlornly at his desk in a Haus that felt very empty.

"C'mon, s'not that bad," said Shitty. "We're not that far away."

"But the team feels so different this year!" Bitty repeated, for the third time. "There's so many tadpoles, I don't know how the team's even going to look."

Jack shrugged from Providence. "You get that some years. Felt like everyone left our second year, eh, Shitty?"

"Fucking-" Shitty buried his face in his hands. "I've heard of building years, but that year was crazy. I ever told you how Mr. Hockey Robot, new captain and all, had us shooting for the Frozen Four when half the team was new?" His eyes were wide and haunted.

"Now, I can't imagine our Jack doing that," Bitty said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"We could have done it." Jack's voice had no inflection at all.

"Dude, you think Rans and Holtzy can get the team into the Frozen Four again this year?" Shitty asked.

"I mean, we can try," Bitty said, at the same time as Jack said, "I know they'll try."

There was a pause as Shitty smirked into his camera. Bitty froze at a jolt of mortification through his body. "You two are so in sync, God. Like, Ransom and Holster-level bros in here."

Bitty tried to be surreptitious as he raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

"So, what's up with the new Taddies?" Shitty seemed to have moved on.

Bitty smiled wide and tried not to sound too hysterical when he described the youngest team members. "There's six of them on their way for the Haus tour today, which feels like a lot, I'll be honest. Was I that loud when I met the team?"

"You brought a pie." Jack looked long-suffering.

"Hush, you. Anyway, there's three of them who know French, and they spend all their time chattering with each other--I understand about one word in twenty, maybe--and it's so funny, you wouldn't believe it, because one's from Quebec, one's got family in the Caribbean, and one went to school in France, so they keep having to stop and explain to each other what something means while they talk, but I think they like it. Then there's Tango, bless him, can't help but ask a question every minute or so, thank God he's got Whiskey with him everywhere, and that's not to mention the big guy in--would you believe it, he's studying textiles?--who seems to have attached himself to the Caribbean kid, Hammie, as his bodyguard or something, I think they share a dorm.

"Every time I look at Hammie he's got a notebook out, writing in it, or typing on his phone, I'm not sure he sleeps? And J-Law's always looking over his shoulder to read what he's writing, making suggestions, and then they're debating, and Lord knows I don't understand half of what they're saying, it's all law and economics, and sometimes they switch into French and then Laffy's joined them and all I can hear is loud French going on and Tango's asking what something means in Hammie's notebook and-"

"Okay, I think I got something out of that?" Shitty interrupted Bitty, one eyebrow raised. "Sounds like it's the opposite of Jack's happy place."

Jack grunted and shrugged. "They get work done, so that's good."

"You said one kid went to school in France?" Bitty nodded in response to Shitty's question. "Not a Laurens kid?"

Bitty's face screwed up as he tried to remember the J-Law's last name. "I think so, yeah?"

"Wow, expected that his parents would've had him at the most expensive place they could find." Shitty narrowed his eyes. "Guess the rumours about him might be true after all. No use putting him through Harvard if he's going to disappoint, they'd say."

"What?" Bitty shared another glance with Jack, this time in confusion, and received no meaningful reply beyond a baffled shrug.

"Ah, s' just family politics. The Laurenses are one of _those_ families." Shitty had the expression on his face that he always had when he mentioned the wealthy business circles his family moved in; disgusted, but also distantly amused. "The grandparents picked up some gossip about the eldest Laurens son a few years back that-"

Shitty was interrupted as his dorm room's door flew open behind him. A deep voice said, "Knight, you have lecture in ten min- _aagh!_ " The door slammed shut as the other man threw up a hand to cover his eyes.

"What, you never seen a dude's junk before, Wash?" Shitty seemed completely unsurprised by the interruption. "Guys, this is G-Wash, President of the Harvard Student Government-"

"Please stop calling me that."

 "-head of the debate club, and my roommate." Shitty made a flourishing gesture toward the tall black man covering his eyes by the wall.

"Why are you in a call without any clothes on?"

"You get used to that," Jack and Bitty chorused.

G-Wash groaned. "So it seems. Knight, I have readings to do and meetings to organise, and you have a lecture to get to. If you're not out of here in sixty seconds there will be Hell to pay."

"Ooh, that's not good." Shitty was grinning at his roommate. "Well, gotta go, guys. Talk to you later." With a huge smile on his face, he ended the call.

"I pity him," Jack said blandly, and Bitty laughed. "What? It's not an easy transition."

"He's got time, and he seems nice. Hopefully, it'll be good for Shitty to have such a stabilising influence around for a while."

Jack grinned. "You sound exactly like my mom when I described Shitty to her. I hung up on her."

"Jack!"

"Well, I didn't know she was right!"

"Mothers usually know best, Jack." Bitty shook a finger at the screen.

There was the sound of a door opening downstairs. Lardo's voice called, "Just here to hang out with some friends!" Several pairs of shoes clicked their way across the floor as the kitchen door creaked open and closed.

Jack and Bitty stared at each other for a long moment. "You want to check that out?" Jack said, finally.

Bitty shrugged. "I don't want to abandon you in a big, empty apartment by yourself."

"Hey, I do have a bookshelf, you know." Jack hefted a huge book into the view of the camera. "I'll just keep reading this."

Bitty took a disbelieving look at the cover. This wasn't the first time Jack had baffled Bitty with his reading choices, but something felt off about this one. "Why are you reading about Alexander Hamilton?"

"Eh, Johnson recommended it to me at the start of the summer. You know how he is; sent me an email out of the blue saying that it would be funny later or something."

"Sure. Well, I'll talk to you later, sweetheart." Bitty blew a kiss at the screen.

Jack smiled. "Bye." He glanced down to end the call, already opening the book with his free hand.

Bitty closed his laptop and headed for the stairs. On the way out, he made one final check of his bedroom to be sure everything was where it should be for the tour. Senor Bun hidden: check. Pucks organised: check. Desk cleared: check. Jack doll put away: check. Bitty closed the door behind him.

#

Whiskey thought twice about his choice of breakfast spot just a little bit almost as soon as he sat down. Tango sat down right beside him and immediately craned his neck across the table to try and read Hammie's notebook. "What are you writing today?" If he asked that question too many more times, Whiskey might have to say something.

Hammie turned away from Lafayette as Whiskey dug into his eggs and bacon, only half-listening. "Getting a head start on term papers," Hammie said, picking up his pen again. His hair was tied into a messy ponytail, and he looked like he hadn't slept at all. Tango had asked Mullet, Hammie's roommate, about that: turned out he was _in bed_ about as much as a usual person, but Mullet wasn't certain if much of that time was spent sleeping. Hammie always had a hundred things happening, and rest didn't seem to be on his list of priorities, Whiskey had noticed.

Right now, Hammie had a small plate with a few rolls on it tucked right against his chest. His laptop was open to his left, playing some news radio station while the screen showed some class's readings for the week. A couple of poli-sci textbooks were open right in front of him, each with five different bookmarks holding pages for later. His top notebook was propped up on a pile of at least five others, and another notebook lay past that pile, labelled "HOCKEY" in bold lettering on the front. This formation was familiar from the last two team breakfast's; Whiskey already thought of Hammie as a creature of habit.

"Dude, classes haven't even started." Mullet slipped his bulk into a seat between J-Law and Hammie somehow. "You can't be doing term work already." Whiskey had no idea why a reference to a 70s hairdo was necessary with Mullet's nickname; his real, actual name, Hercules Mulligan, seemed to be more than sufficient for being over the top.

Hammie had already dived back into his notebook, and seemed to be making a mind map of something to do with international economic tariffs. "I did the readings over the summer, and asked the professors to give me the syllabus early."

Whiskey raised one eyebrow as Tango mouthed "How?" at him. He hadn't even bought most of his textbooks yet. He made a mental note to go to the bookstore after the tour this morning.

"What?!" J-Law leaned across Mullet's shoulder to see the books. "Wow, we got us a regular Hermione here." He made comments like that all the time. Maybe too much, in Whiskey's opinion.

"Huh?" Hammie was engrossed in a textbook, which seemed to have as many handwritten notes in it as there was printed text.

J-Law chuckled. "You know: 'Oh, don't any of you read?' 'I read it in _Hogwarts: a History'_? 'I take so many classes I need to use time travel to get to all of them'?" His English accent sounded a lot like his mouth was full of cotton balls.

"Man, I have to watch those movies again," Mullet commented.

Hammie shrugged. "I don't usually watch movies."

The table went dead silent.

"Dude," J-Law said, finally, when Hammie looked up and around at all the shocked faces around him.

"You don't watch movies? Didn't you read the books? Once I'd watched the movies, I had to read the books," Tango commented. "I had so many questions."

J-Law looked around at all of them, hos mouth slightly ajar as he took in the tableau. He pointed at Mullet. "You've only watched the movies."

The big guy nodded.

J-Law pointed at Tango. "You watched the movies first."

"Is that bad?"

A finger was pointed at Whiskey. "You?"

"I read them over, like, a year. They were fine." Whiskey had seen some parts of the movies. They were also fine.

J-Law stood up to make eye contact with Laffy over Mullet and Hammie's heads.

"I read them in French?" Laffy seemed mostly concerned with his breakfast now that Hammie was back at work.

"And you don't even know about them." J-Law hit Hammie on the head.

"Huh?" Hammie seemed to surface at the touch. "Are you still talking about this? It's _Harry Potter_ , right? It was used in a book I read once as an example of pop-cultural osmosis in a digital society."

J-Law groaned, and put his head on folded arms as he collapsed back into his seat. "That shit's, like, required reading to be a modern human being, guys. I reread them every summer."

"Dude, d'you also watch Disney movies over the summer?" Mullet was smirking as he loomed over J-Law.

"Excuse _you_ , Disney is clearly a Christmas thing." J-Law made to leave with his plate. "Well, sorry boys, but you have all fallen far short of my expectations for functioning human beings. I'm going to go sit with Nursey and Holster; I think I just heard one of them mention _The Hunger Games_. See y'all for the tour." As he glided away, Whiskey noticed Hammie's eyes on him. His eyebrows were drawn together as he looked, in a sort of confused, but also intrigued, fashion. Then he remembered that he was supposed to focus on breakfast rather than conversation.

"You think he knows that hockey players have literally no time for anything other than school and skating?" Mullet said to the table at large.

"Tradition is different in France, no?" Laffy replied. "The hockey is less important, the fun is more?"

"Well, I dunno about Canada, but hockey ain't just something you can pick up around here." Mullet crossed his arms grumpily. "Equipment ain't cheap."

Laffy shrugged. "His family cares not about expense, or did you not know?"

"Yeah, well, some of us have scholarships to get us in here."

Tango frowned, and Whiskey almost made a motion to stop him from asking a question he knew was going to be inappropriate, but his fully loaded fork was halfway to his mouth as Tango spoke. "He looks Latino, though. How did his family get rich?"

Whiskey wanted the floor to open up and swallow his entire side of the table.

Hammie looked up from his work again. He had moved on from his mind map to frantically writing cramped, messy paragraphs across the next page of his notebook. "'The Laurens family emerged from among a conglomerate of farming shareholders in Puerto Rico during the Great Depression,'" he said, in a tinny, distant sort of voice. "'This remarkable family sits among South Carolina's most elite by virtue of their lucrative business, passed down from father to son. They demonstrate the success of the American Dream, no matter what race or nation a person belongs to.'"

"Very nice; you learn that from a textbook?" Mullet said. Hammie nodded, and returned to his paper. It didn't sound like any textbook that Whiskey wanted to read.

Mullet shrugged, ignoring Whiskey as he struggled to calm himself down. Tango hadn't actually committed social suicide, but it wasn't for lack of trying.

"For that matter," Mullet continued, "how do we figure a Quebecois black guy?" He looked pointedly at Laffy.

The smaller man took a huge bite of his sandwich just as Mullet spoke. He raised a finger and swallowed, then wiped his mouth delicately. "Some French nobility was black," he protested. "And the, uh, _chemin de fer clandestin_ , which, uh, opened in Canada. My, eh, _ancêtres,_ married some of the black who, uh, _ont echappe_." He tugged on his ponytail and muttered under his breath, " _Je doit pratiquer mon anglais._ "

Hammie popped up again for a moment. " _Je peut t'aider,"_ he said.

" _Merci_."

"I think I have to learn French," Tango said quietly to Whiskey. "I have to know what they're talking about."

Whiskey just nodded slightly, as Mullet turned away from the French conversation beside him to talk to his fellow American tadpoles.

#

Bitty descended the stairs with no more than the usual amount of rattling and clattering, and he swept into the kitchen, pleased to find that it was as clean as he had left it the night before. A little less cleaning to do today.

Lardo and her friends sat around the kitchen table. They seemed to have barely settled there after coming inside, and all looked up at the door as it crashed closed behind Bitty. "Hi!" he said to them, and headed for the fridge. "Don't mind me, just a hockey player heating up some pie for y'all."

The three unfamiliar girls and Lardo all stood up. "Bits, these are some friends of mine. Angelica, Eliza, and Peggy Schuyler." She gestured at each of them, and they nodded politely, smiling. The tall girl wearing a red Theta Alpha Theta hoodie over a salmon skirt sat back down after a cursory look at him, while Eliza, a paler girl with dark hair, leaned back against the wall and pulled a book out of her bright blue messenger bag.

The third of the sisters, Peggy, wandered around the table to stand by the counter. She held a yellow notebook up with both hands and watched Bitty prepare to heat up the pie. He took a few glances at her and smiled, but she just watched him with wide eyes.

"It's all super political for me in TAT, you know? Do you have the same problem here?" Angelica asked, dropping back into whatever conversation she and Lardo had ongoing.

Lardo snorted. "Boys don't do that as much. Anyways, they know I'd break them if they did."

Angelica leaned across the table, gesticulating wildly and making her hair fly in all directions. "Well, you know, those politics are rooted in the way society teaches women that they should compete with each other, rather than with men. It's really fascinating when you look at the competitive responses of women to other women rather than to men-"

"And ten," said Eliza. She didn't so much as look up from her book. "Angel, you're getting lunch." She looked up momentarily, caught Bitty's eye from across the room, and flashed a small, cheeky smile.

'Angel' looked affronted. "Hey! You two can't count what I said about Bitty earlier! That was from a history seminar, not GRSJ!"

"You agreed to our terms." Eliza shrugged. "And Peggy and I agreed that everything you say has something to do with GRSJ." She inserted a folded piece of paper on her page and closed the book as Bitty came over with several plates bearing pie.

"So, what was that about me being an example from a History seminar?" Bitty asked.

Peggy had trailed around him to sit down at the table and grab a slice of pie before her sisters or Lardo could get there. She laughed, and deposited her notebook beside her plate to free her hands to eat and talk. "Angelica was in a seminar that discussed the history of women's rights, and she was telling us how the association of women with cooking happened. Because everything is social justice with Angelica." She dove into the pie, and made a noise of pleasure at the first bite. Bitty smiled to himself.

Eliza rolled her eyes and grabbed a plate of her own. She pushed her book a safe distance away from any stray crumbs. Bitty took a look at the cover; _Fangirl_ , he had heard something about that book.

"And why would I come up in a history seminar about women being associated with cooking?"

Angelica raised a finger to respond before she swallowed. "Only because of Shitty. He kept telling me all about his thesis last year--you know, about your team--until I started telling him that he should work on it rather than talking about it." Angelica smiled wickedly. "That got him going."

"And you know Shitty because...?"

"Andover," the three girls chorused.

"He's a legend there," Peggy added, in a theatrically hushed voice.

"Not so much." Eliza smiled. "More that we cross paths with him a lot. I spent a lot of time at the ice rink at Andover, where he practiced, and Angelica was in the seminar he ran last year."

"We're planning the same career path," was how Angelica clarified. "Law by way of GRSJ. I tried to bet him that I'd be making a higher salary than him in a decade, but he said that that would only happen because of legislation he'll put through." She rolled her eyes. "Just means I have to study that much harder, and be that much better, so I can go through all that as a black woman before Whitey McKnightey gets to it."

Peggy, who had inhaled her pie, had pulled out her phone. "Ugh! Thomas said he'd be here now, but he's not answering my texts!"

"T-Jeffs gets everywhere late," Lardo said by way of explanation. "He's probably back in the breakfast line, trying to decide whether he actually wants seconds or not."

Thomas Jefferson was someone Bitty knew. Another one of the Andover graduates who had come to Samwell and joined the hockey team. Bitty hadn't seen him around the Haus much last year.

"Then he shall know _the wrath of the Schuyler Squad!_ " Peggy declared, and fired off several texts all at once in retaliation. The phone sitting beside Angelica's plate vibrated. Bitty leaned over with Lardo to take a peek when Angelica turned the phone in their direction. Peggy seemed to be threatening T-Jeffs with social ostracisation in a group chat labelled "Ando Squaaaaad".

Her phone pinged in seconds, and she crowed in triumph.

"He'll be here in five."

Angelica grabbed her sisters' and Lardo's plates and took them to the sink. As usual, they were nearly clean already. "Now, it's not usually our style to eat and run, but Lardo said that something kind of important was going down here today," she told Bitty as he started on the dishes.

"Oh, no! Why, if you'd stayed, I might have to make actual conversation, and goodness knows that would be a disaster."

Lardo, who had pulled her inspection clipboard from her bag to make the rounds of the Haus, rolled her eyes, and Bitty smiled at her. Angelica laughed.

"We'll come for a longer visit another time, if you'll have us. And, well, boys technically shouldn't come in the TAT house outside of parties or hook-ups, but I think I'll make an exception if you want to drop by."

Bitty almost pointed out the weirdness of a GRSJ major in charge of a sorority, but held his tongue and said, "That sounds lovely. Give me a tad bit of warning next time, though? So I can get you something fresh, rather than pulling yesterday's pie out of the fridge."

"Oh, I'm not sure Peggy would survive that," Angelica said, ignoring Peggy's sudden, excited yelling behind her.

Bitty traded numbers with all three of them before T-Jeffs arrived, purple peacoat swinging, to greet them with a melodramatic kiss blown from his fingers. Bitty promised them a proper tour next time before Angelica dragged the three others out the back door in the direction of the frat houses. Eliza, book in hand, vaulted the fence on her way out as if there weren't holes all along it.

It didn't take long to convince Lardo to get her shoes back on and try and straighten up some of the front lawn before the team arrived for the tour.

#

Nursey's phone vibrated just as he was standing up from the breakfast table. At the same time as he pulled it out, he saw T-Jeffs, down a few chairs from him, pull his out as well. Dex looked between them for a moment.

"Well, what's going down in Andover land?" Nursey grinned at the commentary, and T-Jeffs ignored it. He was too busy reading his phone and gulping in fear.

Nursey whooped. "One of the Schuylers is gonna spill all the dirt on Jeffs if he doesn't get to the Haus!" T-Jeffs had blanched all the way up to the roots of his afro, and was already texting furiously to placate her.

Dex raised one eyebrow, his classic, Nursey-exclusive look. "Not the girl you hang out with?"

Nursey almost cackled at the thought of Eliza roasting anyone. No, her style was less public, and more painful. More permanent. "Nah, her little sister. Peggy's kind of like Angelica, but not as likely to use her powers for the greater good." T-Jeffs had already vanished, and the chat blew up with Peggy cackling and other group members alternately chiding her and encouraging her.

"Not sure how nervous I should be about that."

"Very." Nursey and Dex headed for the doors as Ransom and Holster tried to round up the Tadpoles. "You know how Angel's already the queen of the sorority circuit? Peggy has all that framework to build on, and less schoolwork to keep her occupied. She's gonna rule this school."

"So you're saying you want to be on her good side." Dex groaned. "Why are so many of you Andover kids here? And why do you bring all your family politics with you? This school is turning into a fucking political drama."

Showing how amusing an annoyed Dex was would make it harder to rile him up. Nursey went for a vaguely pedantic tone. "For the record, frats are already political dramas, but much less classy, which is why no one writes drama about smelly frat boys. But yeah, Andover is the liberal prestigious private school, so of course we all come to the super liberal college."

"So you're saying this is what I get for coming to an inclusive university."

"Hey, you're learning all about us!"

The two of them walked leisurely down the paths in the general direction of the Haus in silence for a while. Nursey looked around at the late summer scenery, itching to stop and pull out his poetry notebook, while Dex's eyes flitted from face to face going in the opposite direction, doing that patented white boy close-lipped smile at strangers, as he always did.

Somewhere along the pond, Nursey thought of something. "Dex?"

"What."

"You're in Computer Science, right? Planning to own a business?"

"Maybe?"

"You know that anything to do with business is just as political as any family drama I might have, right?"

Dex just groaned.

"I mean, that might be one reason I supposedly have an advantage over you in business; I was raised in the same sort of environment as I'd be working in."

"Nurse?"

"Yeeess?"

"Shut up."

"No. I think I'll ask the group chat about this later. A bunch of them are in law or GRSJ, maybe they can answer my question."

"Apparently the ones in Fine Arts can't answer their own questions."

"I'm learning to ask questions, Poindexter, not answer them." Nursey kept his tone sickeningly prim.

Dex mimed vomiting. "Disgusting way to learn, really."

"Oh, all you have to do to catch up is read _Pride and Prejudice_ sometime. I can lend you my copy." Nursey tapped one finger against the Kindle sticking out of his messenger bag.

Dex rolled his eyes, like he always did when Nursey made a particularly inane suggestion. "'Here, read this book about girls in period dresses' is not the sort of answer I was looking for, Mr. Arts Student."

"Don't knock period dresses, dude. I wish I could pull off a dress like that some days."

"Excuse me?" Dex pulled off to the side of the path a bit, a little further away from Nursey.

Nursey tried not to be offended. "We've been talking about this sort of stuff for a year, man, chill. If someone made me a bomb-ass dress, I would totally wear it out. Bonus points for a bustle. I don't have Bitty's advantages in the booty department."

Dex gave him a fantastic side-eye. That was a new expression. Nursey filed it away for later, when he would work out how to bring it back to Dex's face. "That is kind of really not my thing," was all Dex said.

Nursey didn't _quite_ let a grin escape. "Ah, I remember a party back in high school..." he began, in his most theatrical voice.

"You did _not_." Dex almost went straight off the edge of the sidewalk they had turned on to this time.

"Nah, I didn't. Chill." Nursey flashed his teeth momentarily at Dex's horrified expression. "But I _did_ read Juliet when my class did _Romeo and Juliet_. Eliza did Romeo, which was pretty chill, really. She mimes killing someone really well."

Dex seemed relieved to be turning up the path to the Haus. "I don't ever want to think about you in a ball gown ever again," He said, and stormed into the kitchen to mooch pie, like he always did.

Just as Nursey was about to follow him, his phone buzzed yet again. He was preparing to be impressed by whatever quip someone had sent to Jeffs, but it was a message straight to him, from Aaron: "Is TJ okay?"

Nursey leaned against the doorframe, one eye on Bitty and Dex arguing about welcome pies, as he responded. "already gone with SS. y?"

Aaron, as always, took a while to respond, and it was only a short message that he finally sent. "James was worried."

Nursey was already typing a response. "chill. want 2 hang out 2moro?"

He had sat down at the kitchen table with Dex, who had indeed managed to get a slice of pie, before he got a reply. "I'm seeing Theo."

"（＊〇□〇）......！"

Aaron didn't respond to that. Nursey entertained himself by riling Dex up with more stories about Andover class politics. Bitty finally told part of The Jam Drama, too, which was amazing.

#

Except for Ransom, all the older guys on the team ran off to the Haus before breakfast was officially over, leaving Tango sitting with the rest of the Tadpoles. He wasn't quite sure, but not _all_ of the guys lived in the Haus, right? Some of them must have gone off in other directions. They couldn't possibly fit thirty big men into that one building. He asked Whiskey about it. Whiskey was good at answering questions.

He looked around at the nearly empty table, and started pointing at vacated chairs to refer to the people who had sat in them. "Chowder and Holster went to clean up their rooms. Dex and Nursey might be at the Haus. Ollie and Wicks might have gone there? Who knows where those two are when you can't see them. I know some of the other guys went to a frat meeting or somethng." Whiskey always knew what everyone was doing. Tango was going to need to ask him about that sometime.

Until breakfast ended, Tango asked Mullet about his major. He had never met a tailor before, and it was interesting to hear about fabrics, and embroidery, and the amount of work that went into his clothing. Tango had to pull out his phone and make a note to check all the tags on his shirts to find out where they were made. Who knew there were so many different sorts of shirt a guy could wear?

Mullet was interrupted halfway through describing why people paid so much for tailoring when Ransom stood up and started to herd all of them out of the dining hall. Hammie gathered up his notebooks, textbooks, and his laptop, and managed to fit everything into one enormous backpack, except for a paperback report of some kind, which he read on the walk to the Haus, with J-Law looking over his shoulder and providing commentary. The rest of the Tadpoles straggled behind Ransom along the path, driving people going in the other direction out of the way without trying to. Laffy and Ransom tried to hold a conversation in French, but finally agreed that Ransom should speak English and Laffy should speak French, since they could both understand the other language, but had trouble speaking it. Tango made a note to look up why.

Whiskey was observing everything quietly, from the back of the crowd. He looked very nearly bored, like he always seemed to. Mullet blocked out the sky beside Tango, continuing the same conversation from the dining hall. He knew an impressive number of different ways to sew something up; maybe he could teach Tango? He _could_ sew, but that didn't mean his sewing was good.

Bitty met them on the front porch of the Haus, where he dodged past Ransom. Inside, Tango heard Ransom thundering up some creaky-sounding stairs. Bitty started on some kind of prepared speech. Tango listened intently, and more and more questions popped into his head as the speech continued.

Finally, Bitty said, "Any questions?" Tango lifted a finger, but Hammie's arm shot up first. He was still holding that report, and J-Law looked a little surprised to have a raised arm suddenly in his face.

"Yes, Hammie?" Bitty said.

Hammie cleared his throat. "When you say we can study here, do you mean there are times when we can, or just anytime? Is there good Wi-Fi? Can I keep some of my books here?"

Bitty had to raise both hands in a 'stop' gesture to slow down the flow of words. "Whoa there, boy. Let me take those one at a time." Tango wanted to ask why Hammie seemed so impatient about that. "It gets kind of loud in the living room on a hockey night, but you don't want to study on that couch anyhow, so don't worry about that. I can definitely tell you that Holster streams a whole lot of movies on our Wi-Fi, so it's not bad, I guess? And you'll have to talk to one of the tenants personally to keep your books here." He winked. "If you want dibs _and_ a spot for your textbooks, you better be very convincing and _very_ helpful.

"Anything else?"

This time, he noticed Tango, and pointed to him, but Tango hesitated. "Um." He screwed up his face, trying to order a few of the questions together. "I have... so many questions."

Bitty smiled. "Well, let me take them one at a time as we go on the tour, then." He led the way inside.


	2. Chapter 2: In Which Very Little Studying Occurs

Bitty was recording a vlog in his room when there was a thunderous knock at the door.

"So anyway, my aunt said- _What?_ " he interrupted himself, yelling through the door.

There were whispered voices on the other side of the door. Bitty sighed and turned off his mic; that wasn't going to see use for at least a little while, especially because that was a girl outside, and not Lardo. Probably some kind of relationship thing one of the Tadpoles wanted mediation on. Definitely not Bitty's responsibility, but he should at least see what was up.

"Oh no, he's busy!" That was the girl. "Do you think he's recording right now?"

"He's either in a call with one of the grads or he's recording. Oops." Ah, that was Mullet. Funny, Bitty didn't think that he'd gotten into any scrapes thus far in the year. Then again, it wasn't even the first kegster yet. Only a few weeks during which Bitty had known these boys, and a lot of them came with baggage. He hurled Senor Bunny from where he sat on the desk, behind his camera, into the depths of the closet, and went to open the door.

The two people on the other side froze as he emerged, like deer in headlights. It was Mullet, yes, wearing his heavily patched textiles apron, which meant he should be doing homework. And with him was Peggy Schuyler, who Bitty hadn't seen since he had been introduced to her, on the day of the Haus tour. They had traded a few texts, but she had seemed unwilling to start conversations. After a moment, they straightened and jumped back slightly. Mullet resumed towering over both of them like the giant he was.

"Can I help y'all?" Bitty drawled, leaning against his doorframe.

Peggy stirred, then swung her yellow backpack over in front of her and unzipped it in one motion. She started to rifle through it for something. "Oh, I'm so sorry to interrupt, but I just wanted to ask about a recipe you covered last week, and I tried it, but--let me be clear--I have seen better tarts up the ass-end of New York bakeries, and I just don't know what I did wrong..." Her voice drifted away, and she covered her mouth with delayed modesty. She had her yellow notebook halfway out of her bag.

Mullet nodded calmly. "I had the same question." If Bitty hadn't learnt his nervousness tell--he pulled on the loose threads in his clothes--he would have had no idea Mullet was anything but calm.

So, Bitty put aside his consternation at meeting viewers of his for a few moments. "Well, were you using the student kitchen ovens?"

They both nodded. "Nothing else around," said Mullet.

Bitty nodded, and ducked between the two of them to head down the stairs. "Well, they suck worse than just about any oven I've ever used, but my Aunt Rita taught me how to get them working for you. Lemme just show you." Bitty led the way into the kitchen, where some of the boys were gathered to do homework. It was part of Hammie's schedule now: Latin and English 101 in the Haus kitchen, 3:00-5:00 on Mondays and Wednesdays, followed by Haus dinner and pie. Hammie, J-Law, Holster, and a few others looked up and waved hello as Bitty pulled out various baking tools.

Peggy hopped up on the counter to watch, and Mullet leaned against the sink. Bitty pulled Kerry open to show the locations of the heating elements, and explain how they transferred heat around. Simple stuff.

He was nearly done with helping them make the tart when the front door banged open, and Nursey sauntered into the kitchen. "Shoo!" Bitty gestured him out of the kitchen. "I'm busy in here."

"Oh, cool." Nursey backed out, snatching some cookies from earlier off the cooling rack. "We can go up to C's room, Aaron," he called over his shoulder.

Every head around the kitchen table whipped around. "Who's Aaron?" asked Holster loudly.

A head popped up behind Nursey in the kitchen door. "Wow, that is a lot of hockey players." His head was shaved, and he had a pencil behind one ear. His eyes darted around, either preoccupied or shifty. Bitty went for preoccupied. This was the start of term, after all.

Peggy shrieked, "Aaron!" She threw herself across the kitchen, and Nursey barely dodged out of the way before she knocked Aaron back into the hall. "I haven't seen you all year, and you don't talk in the chat! Let me just call Eliza, she'll want to talk to you!" Her voice sailed into the kitchen, minus its body.

"Y'all get back in my kitchen!" said Bitty, putting his cookies on a plate. He would need to get out some kind of snack. Unfortunately, the boys had vanquished the pie supply last night after practice. "Aaron gets some complimentary cookies and pie if he gets in here so I can see him!"

"What about me?" said Nursey, amused. "I came straight into the kitchen."

"You stole cookies." Bitty stuck out his tongue at him and carried the plate of cookies into the hall.

Aaron dodged around Peggy, who was furiously texting, and grabbed a cookie. "Thanks," he said, then he was into the kitchen, dragging Nursey with him. Peggy marched after them, her eyes on her phone.

The next several minutes were a flurry of activity for Bitty, between managing the demonstration tart and heating up some peanut butter mini-pies from the previous day, while Holster interrogated Nursey's friend.

Mullet was extremely helpful, even if he should have been doing homework. His textiles apron had mysteriously vanished, replaced with a borrowed one of Bitty's. He dodged around the kitchen, carrying stuff to the table and cleaning up the tools Bitty dirtied almost before he put them down. It was wonderful, and Bitty was just looking around to see if anything else should go to the table when Mullet peered into the fridge.

"Yo, these apple pies for us?" he asked. He was allergic to peanuts, right! Bitty plastered a smile on. If only it had been anything but peanut butter mini-pies today, Mullet wouldn't have asked.

"No, sorry, Mullet-"

"Oh." Mullet nodded sagely. "They for your boy in Providence?"

Bitty's smile dropped off, and Mullet closed his eyes and sighed.

"My room. Now." Bitty whipped off his apron and darted up the stairs.

#

Holster sipped his coffee and narrowed his eyes at Aaron Burr across the kitchen counter. He almost put down his mug to steeple his fingers together, but resisted the urge. There was no way to create that sort of mystique in a room full of flower print curtains, tablecloths, and scribbly Econ homework. "So. Aaron," he began, carefully enunciating both syllables of the name.

Aaron surfaced, opening his eyes and swallowing a bite of mini-pie. "Sir?"

"You've got quite some nerve, hanging out with our Nursey for a year, and never showing your face here so we could take a look at you."

"Uh."

"I might just have to call up the rest of the Samwell Men's Hockey Judicial Squad and see if we can charge you a fine for not coming to meet the Samwell Men's Hockey Team." Holster pushed his glasses up his nose at the bridge with his index finger.

Aaron blinked.

Finally, Nursey took pity on him. "Chill, dude," he said, from the kitchen counter, where he and Peggy were busy with their phones. "Think of this like the hazing you never got."

"That hardly makes me feel better, Derek." Burr's tone was so dry that Holster had to hold himself back from grinning. He liked this one already.

"Ooh, first name terms with the Nurse-meister!" J-Law crowed, watching avidly from beside Hammie. "What were you two _going upstairs_ to do, huh?" He grabbed a mini-pie. Hammie leaned over and snatched J-Law a napkin, so that he wouldn't spray crumbs all over Hammie's notebooks.

Burr arched one eyebrow, a dramatic gesture on his shaved head. "We were going to work on English Lit homework."

"And what about _after_ that, huh?"

Nursey rolled his eyes. "J-Law, chill. We don't use that kind of frat house language. Unless you're being ironic, in which case, _dude, chill_."

"Anyways." Holster leaned forward on the table, and this time he did steeple his fingers, environment be damned. "What's your major, Mr. Burr?"

Aaron leaned back slightly, lifting his second mini-pie. "General Arts, but I'll specialise into Pre-Law."

"And I understand you're another Andover kid, like Nurse and the lovely Peggy Schuyler, over here?" Holster gestured to Peggy, who made an "Mmff?" noise through a mouthful of pastry. "Did you happen to know the inestimable Shitty B. Knight at Andover?"

Aaron's smile was wide, revealing slightly crooked teeth, and his eyes crinkled up. "Everyone who's been through Andover knows Knight. He's actually the reason I applied at Samwell. Did I hear something about Harvard this year?"

"Oh, yeah. Bitty talks to him more than I do this year. You had other plans for university?" Holster grinned, too. Aaron was playing what Holster liked to think of as 'The Game of Secrets'. You talked about only what you wanted to talk about, and redirected the conversation so you were talking about something other than you. Well, nobody played that game better than Econ majors, except maybe politicians, and Holster never played enough, stuck in a house full of variously innocent or inebriated hockey players. He could drop into Job Interview Mode in seconds.

Aaron blinked. "I applied to Harvard when I was thirteen, and I promise you I'd fulfilled all the prereqs to get in, but-"

Hammie suddenly interrupted. He'd looked up from his laptop for the first time just now. "Holy fuck, I read about you!"

"Excuse me?" Again, one eyebrow arched upwards.

"'Aaron Burr, orphaned autodidact and heir to the Esther Edwards and Co. law firm, applies to Harvard Law at thirteen, declined," recited Hammie. He seemed lost for words for a moment. "Oh my god, wait until my baby brother hears about this. You totally dropped off the radar after that, and you were such an inspiration for me in high school." He smiled suddenly. "Well, Phil would say you're my ins _burr_ ation, actually."

Nursey choked on a laugh, and Peggy chuckled. J-Law patted Hammie gently on the shoulder, shaking his head in disgust. Aaron pursed his lips, a gesture Holster read as a nonverbal "Never heard _that_ one before!"

"Okay, get ready to repeat that when Eliza gets here, guy," said Peggy, pulling out her phone again. Then she glared over her phone at Aaron. "She's been trying to contact you, you know? You and her were the ones saying we all needed to keep talking after grad."

Aaron shrugged. "Life got busy. I'm still talking to Derek."

"Oh yeah. Like that counts. 'Ooh, I'm Derek Nurse, I'm super _chill_ and I talk to literally everyone ever!'" Peggy twirled her waves of brown curls and simpered, batting her eyes at them all. "Derek probably had to hunt you down in a shared class."

"Children, settle down," said Holster, before Nursey could fire off a retort. "Now, child genius, law student, socially awkward new friend: what is your opinion on _Wicked_?"

Aaron chuckled. "That is a good show. I'm a sucker for characters like Elphaba. The themes fascinate me, especially the metaphor with the animals. I read the book to get some more insight into that."

Behind him, Holster heard Nursey whisper to Peggy, "Buckle in, we'll be here for three hours talking about musicals now."

Holster smiled. "I mean, I'm there for Galinda's strong and traditional Gah, so the oppression part is like the thing I talk about after reenacting "Popular". I'm Glinda." And Ransom was usually Elphaba.

"I believe it," said Aaron.

"Dude, we should totally do that," said J-Law, jumping in and thumping Hammie on the back as he spoke.

"Huh?" Hammie looked up again. "They're talking about something in a play, right? I don't watch those." He dove back into some kind of Latin exercise.

J-Law mimed a chest injury. "No! You haven't even seen _Wicked_? Dude, you, me, Christmas in New York City. I'll get us tickets for it."

"I'll be at home for Christmas."

"Thanksgiving, then."

"Home."

"Summer?"

"Working. At home. Sorry."

J-Law clutched at his curly locks of hair. "Aaah! Why do some people have to be so responsible?"

"To pay for school." Hammie's voice had no inflection.

J-Law opened his mouth to say something more, and it shut with a snap. He winced for a moment. "Oh. Okay. Cool." He turned back to his English homework.

Aaron watched the whole thing with the sort of vague interest of someone looking for advantages. Holster knew that look intimately well; every single business student wore it during any conversation not directly related to them. "Well, Aaron, I like you, and that's what counts, so feel free to drop by here anytime to hang with Nursey, or with us." Holster stretched.

Nursey planted himself at the table in the empty spot beside Aaron and pulled his backpack onto his lap. "Great. Thanks, Cap. We can do the discussion questions now, yeah?" He pulled a brick-like edition of _Hamlet_ out of his backpack, followed by a binder.

"Sure."

Peggy had planted herself firmly beside the oven with her phone. "At least until Eliza gets here."

Holster looked around. Where had Bitty gone? And where was Mullet? That tart, or whatever he was baking, might burn or something if he wasn't taking care of it.

#

Whiskey hadn't been expecting this many people when T-Jeffs had invited him and Tango to a frat and sorority council session. He'd expected some kind of dramatic lighting while the heads of Samwell Greek culture sat around a table and plotted the year's events in sinister masks or something. Tango had been super excited, and Whiskey had been curious, he supposed, to see how this sort of thing worked. The Haus couldn't be indicative of the rest of the frats.

The meeting convened in the rec room of the old library, a big, bright room with huge arched windows. The attendees lounged on couches and around tables, or in little conversation circles, and there were probably a hundred or so people. Whiskey thought it probably resembled a cocktail party, but with less obvious alcohol and more Doritos.

Tango had wandered off, interrogating a woman in a pink Theta Alpha Theta shirt, but Whiskey stuck close to T-Jeffs. As a junior, he knew exactly where he was going, and had arrived in one of the chattering groups near the edge of the room.

They were all athletic men, and a few were in Samwell Lacrosse shirts. Whiskey, remembering Holster's dire warnings about fraternising with LAX Bros, melted away from T-Jeffs' side, and watched from the sidelines as the conversation proceeded. He knew a few of the freshmen, and they seemed fine, but this was very public, and these guys didn't give off the fun vibe the freshmen did.

"Well, how are we all doing?" T-Jeffs' smile looked like it was about to split his face in two. He never wore an expression like that at the Haus. "Everything peachy in the land of lacrosse?"

One of the guys, who had a perfect movie star face marred by a superior expression, smiled thinly at T-Jeffs. "If your captains would leave my team alone, we would be doing wonderfully." He had a posh sort of British accent.

T-Jeffs spread his arms helplessly, his smile not shifting a millimetre. "Well, George, I've done what I can on the team to settle 'em down, but the new captains are more active than Jack when it comes to old enmities. If you could talk to them in person, maybe-"

George interrupted him. "I'll talk to the Samwell Men's Hockey captain when he comes by our house asking to see me on my terms," he said, his voice bland and quiet.

The smile thinned slightly on T-Jeffs' face. "Cool, cool. Did you all also get a fresh crop of Andover boys for your team?"

"Not as such. We have gotten a new connection with one of the sororities, though. Pi Epsilon Pi."

One of the other guys spoke up. "Yeah, my girl joined up with them this year. They've been talking to me about how to haze her." Whiskey didn't like the proprietary way he'd said 'my girl.' The whole statement was presented as if this guy's dog had learnt a new trick.

"I suggested playing around with your team, Thomas," said George mildly. "It's not their problem if they never come to these meetings or talk to anyone else in any frats."

The guys in the group guffawed dutifully, and T-Jeffs chuckled a bit. His eyes darted to Whiskey's impassive face. "Well, I'm excited to hear about what you decide, George. You know I'm on board to help any way I can. Just text me." He moved to extract himself from the circle.

"Thomas!" called a woman. People turned to watch as the Theta Alpha Theta girl Tango had been talking to glided across the room in their direction, followed by a confused Tango. "You went dark on me after the other week! I was wondering whether to head to the Haus again."

"Angelica!" T-Jeffs' huge, plastered-on smile was back. "I was hoping I'd get to see you."

Angelica's looked vaguely amused. "Were you really, Thomas? Were you _really_?"

He just smiled.

Angelica seemed to notice the LAX group T-Jeffs stood with. "Hanover," she said tartly.

"Schuyler," was the too-sweet reply. George looked like he'd just swallowed a lemon.

"Oh, yes." Angelica refocussed on T-Jeffs. "Thomas, I need to see the rest of that Haus. I've just been talking to this teammate of yours," she gestured at Tango, "and it sounds fabulous. I'm thinking of calling up that kid with the vlog to get him to show us around."

Whiskey and Tango made desperate eye contact. Tango looked lost, but Whiskey kept his cool. Yeah, these two sounded like they were from another century, or lived in another genre from the one his life operated in, but that was fine. Maybe it was a frat thing. Maybe it was a rich people thing--was this how people at actual cocktail parties would talk?

"Well, Angel dear." T-Jeffs had continued the conversation. "I've got some people to talk to before this meeting's over, but Tango's friend Whiskey is here with me if you want to talk to him as well. I'm sure you can figure something out so you and your sisters can get in the Haus." He vanished before Angelica could do more than than smile and nod goodbye.

Angelica watched him as he hurried away. "Not at all at his usual level," she said, as if noting something in a journal. She turned to George and his LAX bros. "And what are you doing with him?"

"I can talk with anyone I want to."

"Uh-huh." Angelica did not look convinced. "Well, shove off. _I_ don't want to talk to you."

George's group all looked between him and Angelica for a moment, shocked. George curled his lip at Angelica. "We were done here anyway." He slunk away with his team in tow.

"What was that?" Tango's eyes were nearly circular.

"Something that I hope you never have to deal with," said Angelica. "It might actually be a good idea for me to spend more time at your Haus until whatever they're planning blows over." She pulled a hair tie off her wrist and started drawing her mane of curls into a ponytail.

"Why?" asked Tango, at the same time as Whiskey said, "Good idea."

Angelica looked at him for the first time. After an appraising once-over, she smiled. "Good thing you're here. Those boys need someone who listens rather than talks." She turned back to Tango. "So, are you saying that your rules are written on the wall in the basement? In Sharpie?"

#

"Am I really that obvious in my videos?"

Mullet looked supremely uncomfortable. Bitty found it incredible how someone so big could seem so small. "Well, only because I actually know the guys now, and watch your videos. I don't think it's all that obvious to anyone else. Peggy doesn't know!"

Bitty frowned at his computer. He debated the merits of editing his posted videos, but that tended to get people curious, which would be bad. He fell into his desk chair and heaved a sigh.

"It's fine. You just gave me a fright there, being so open about it. I just need to think about it."

Bitty would have said more, but Holster's deep voice boomed up from the bottom of the stairs. "Bitty! Where are you? Your oven pines for you!"

"I know what I'm doing, Holster!" Bitty yelled back. "I'll be down in a sec!

"Now, don't tell anyone about this, please, unless I say you can," said Bitty to Mullet. He nodded enthusiastically. "Good. I'll be down in a few minutes, I just have to pass on this info."

Mullet ran out of the room like a plague of locusts was after him.

Bitty was halfway through texting Jack about Mullet's insight when Shitty sent him a FaceTime request. He accepted it and kept texting, half an eye on the exhausted face that popped into view on the screen.

"Bitty, oh my God, I hate my life." Shitty held his head up with both arms and still looked ready to collapse. Bitty had never seen such dark rings under his eyes, even after a kegster.

"Hello and good afternoon to you, too."

"Whyyy am I doing this to myself, Bitty?"

"Because we both know that you can do it, even if it hurts along the way." Bitty sent the text, and stood up. "Are you okay?"

"I will be." Shitty's posture relaxed just a bit. "Even if this is the worst thing I've ever done and I hate it, I'll come out the other end smiling, because otherwise my family would have a fucking field day."

"Is it okay if I go downstairs with you? I'm baking right now, and the kitchen is a bit crowded."

"That's fine, we can talk while I do some of my mountains of homework. Literal mountains, Bitty, you have no idea. This is worse than thesis work. It's like I'm writing my thesis all day every day, and going to classes and discussions in between, and you won't believe some of the shit I've heard people saying in discussions."

"But you don't have practises and team breakfasts every morning to distract you."

"But I miss those! I wish I had to roll out of bed and go ice skating in forty pounds of gear early in the morning! All this work sucks!" Shitty threw some of the offending homework into the air in frustration.

"Knight, if you do that again, I swear I'll throw you out the window."

"Whatever you say, G-Wash," said Shitty sourly.

"Don't call me that."

The noise level increased as Bitty went down the stairs, but he wasn't prepared for the scene that greeted him in the kitchen. Peggy and Mullet were looking over his textiles homework and arguing about patterns and colour palettes. Nursey and Aaron both had some kind of huge book in their hands, and seemed to be reenacting a scene or something on one side of the room. Ransom had shown up at some point, and he and Holster were demonstrating some kind of weird D-Man Captain secret handshake for J-Law. It involved a lot of whooping when they got the motions right, as well as half the floor space. Eliza Schuyler had arrived with Chowder in tow, and both of them were gushing over some of Bitty's kitchen tools--the lobster claw oven mitts--while sitting on the counter. Hammie, in the middle of the chaos, sat resolutely at the kitchen table with his homework, ignoring the arm J-Law had flung over his shoulder. Bitty was impressed that there was room to move.

Meanwhile, Shitty continued to speak to Bitty. "G-Wash won't spoon with me, even though we're friends now. The last time I cuddled was with Jack the night after grad!"

In the background, G-Wash said, "How do you remember that?"

"Hmm? Hey, Bitty, what's up?" Shitty must have noticed Bitty's frozen expression.

Bitty turned the camera on his phone and panned it around the room. "There was homework happening here when I went upstairs."

Shitty immediately chortled. "Holy shit, this is art. G-Wash you have to see this."

"Don't call me tha- That's a lot of big men in one room. I like the one doing his homework. Like you should be doing."

"G-Wash, you wound me."

"The window is open."

Bitty, still holding his phone up, dodged around Eliza and Chowder to get to the oven. Everything was fine, no one had touched anything, he still had a few minutes. He commanded Eliza and Chowder down from the counter, but distracted them with some of Chowder's shark-shaped sugar cookies. He would have to wait to wipe down the counter until it wasn't going to just get dirty again. As to the rest of it...

Bitty slid into a chair beside Hammie and continued his conversation with Shitty. "Just another day at the Haus, right?"

"Duh, dude. I love it." Bitty ignored J-Law's curious look.

"Hoping to see it again soon?"

"Dude, I'll be back for the first kegster, no doubt."

Ransom heard him. "Wait, Bits, is that Shitty?" He stopped doing the strange choreographed routine with Holster and came up behind Bitty's chair. "Ohmigosh it is!"

"Yo, bro!" Shitty waved. "Live from Harvard, where I'm dying from homework disease."

"Bro, I know what you mean. Turns out life can get harder than Junior Year, you know?"

G-Wash's voice came through the speakers again. "Can you please just do some work?"

"Settle down, Washington, just gimme a moment."

Hammie perked up. "Washington?" he said.

"Who's that?" Shitty tried to angle his head around as if it would move the camera.

"Oh, this is Hammie." Bitty turned his phone to show him.

"Dude, you look as tired as I feel."

"Our Shitty, such a charmer," said Bitty, in a deadpan tone.

Hammie shrugged. "I don't mind. I don't need that much sleep. Did you say there's a Washington there?"

"Oh, yeah. Yo, Washington, some kid wants to meet you!"

" _Thank you_ for stopping with the nickname." Washington stood up and waved to the camera. "Yo. Who is this?"

"Oh my gosh hi, I'm Alexander Hamilton. It's so cool to actually get to talk to you, I read about you back when you got elected at Harvard, and I wasn't sure if Bitty was actually talking about _you_ you, or someone with the same last name, but it is you, and I just want to say," Hammie took in a huge breath, "you're one of my biggest inspirations and I also want to go into law and can you tell me how you did it?"

There was a stunned silence around the table. Washington smiled.

"We'll talk. Now, Knight here really has homework to do." Over Shitty's protestations, Washington reached for the mouse and ended the call.

"Seriously? That's what distracts you?" J-Law sounded incredulous. "I can't even make you nerd out about Marvel, and then you go on a rant about a university student. I mean, I love it, but it's a little weird." He slung his arm, which had fallen to his side, back over Hammie's shoulder.

Hammie shrugged and picked up his pen again. J-Law giggled at the movement. Bitty rather thought Hammie had used up all his excitement for the day. "I have work to do."

"And I have baking to do." Bitty stood up and went to the oven. "Mullet, Peggy, you're the reason this thing is happening, so get over here. Do you two also want to take a look?" he asked Eliza and Chowder, who nodded and put down the frying pan Eliza had been admiring.

"Anyway, let me show you how to finish this thing off-"


	3. Chapter 3: In Which a Million Things Happen

Tango hadn't really wanted to make Mullet spend time sewing on the weekend, when he already did it all week in class, but Mullet had insisted.

"Man, I spend all my time on it anyway," he said, opening the door of the room he shared with Hammie in the dorms. Hammie's bed was covered in papers and books, and Tango could see a few patches of his bedclothes through the mess. Needless to say, the bed was unmade. The desk on Hammie's side of the room was covered, not with Hammie's work, but with carefully folded clothing patterns under a layer of fat notebooks with sticky notes angling out of them.

Mullet's side of the room was tidier. He made his bed, for one, and his desk was filled with an old sewing machine and a plastic organiser, probably filled with thread or something else.

Mullet dropped down in front of the sewing machine. He noticed Tango looking over at Hammie's desk. "Hammie doesn't use the desk," he said.

"Why not?"

Mullet shrugged. "He does all his work in bed. Just goes under the blankets until only his head and hands come out."

"Is it that cold out?"

"Maybe for someone from the Caribbean? I dunno, man. So, let's get sewing."

For Mullet, all of this was as easy as breathing. He said it was more like skating, something you got so good at that you didn't need to think about it, and you could add more stuff to think about on top of it, like more complicated patterns, or a stick and a puck. Tango wasn't sure he saw that yet, but he could follow Mullet's demonstrations pretty well, and his hand sewing had improved this year. He could sew patches on his clothes! And they looked good!

Tango was getting used to the flow of moving fabric under the needle when Mullet said, "Why'd you pick Samwell?"

"Huh?" Tango nearly lost his concentration. It held, barely, and he was able to answer, slowly. "Uh, it's close to where my family lives, and, I mean, Jack Zimmermann was on this team? How much better do you get?" He was inordinately proud of himself. "Why did you come to Samwell?"

Mullet grunted and shifted a bit from his seat on his bed. "Well, I got into the textiles program here, and it's pretty good, and then Coach Hall called to offer me a scholarship--same one Bitty has, right?--and I wasn't going to say no to a free ride through college."

"Oh." Tango held up the finished seam for Mullet to see, and he gave a thumbs up, and told him to fold the fabric the same way a few inches over and practice it again. When he'd got the rhythm down for that, Tango asked, "Does Hammie have the same thing?"

Mullet chuckled. "Man, I don't bother keeping track of all his scholarships. But nah, I don't think he's got the same one. Maybe a partial one, but Ham's got the academics to cover the rest of his tuition from other money."

"Huh." Tango went back to sewing, and concentrated on that for a while while his thoughts turned. He had applied for scholarships, of course, and he had loans, of course, but his family was bearing a lot of the load. He thought that it was a cultural thing: invest in your child's future as a safeguard for old age. Some people couldn't do that for their kids.

Mullet's phone shattered the silence by belting out the chorus of "Out Tonight" and nearly falling off of the bed before Mullet grabbed it. He looked over the text.

"Yo, the other guys are at the Faber. They're doin' some skating real quick. Wanna join?"

Tango looked down at his unfinished sewing practice. There were a few other things Mullet was going to show him today. "No, unless you really want to?"

"I'm cool." Mullet fired a text back and lay down on his stomach, peering over the end of his bed at the desk. "Wanna try another stitch?"

#

"That's a no from Tango and Mullet." Dex put his phone back in his gym bag and shoved it into his cubby. "So it's just us."

Whiskey and Laffy nodded. Nursey gave a 'chill' thumbs up that set Dex's teeth on edge. Chowder drooped in his goalie gear. Eliza, still tying up the hockey skates they had managed to dig up and clean in her size, made an assenting noise. She stood up and took a few wary steps. "It's been a while since I was on skates."

"Then let's get you on the ice." Nursey offered her his arm, and she took it with a sarcastic curtsy. It was such a strange motion in the hockey gear she had on.

Very shortly they were all skating around the rink. It had been weeks since Dex had been on the ice for something other than practice, and he kept half-expecting Holster or Ransom to pop out of thin air and demand drills from them. He liked this sort of skating, just circling the rink and idly racing with people for a few moments.

Laffy had approached them all about skating a few days ago. He'd been so awkward about it, too. "I, euh, would like some help to practice my English," he'd said. "But it should be not awkward, so do you, euh, _penser_ that we could go skating and, what is it, hang out?"

Dex and Nursey had agreed, of course, after a brief conversation about whether either of them knew the French to explain anything to Laffy if he got confused. They didn't. Nursey had taken Spanish in High School, and Dex knew enough Gaelic to get by when they visited with the Irish Aunts. Laffy had assured them that he had "prepared himself for all the English." Nursey had quipped that that statement hardly boded well.

Whiskey had joined the next day, when they were comparing schedules. At the time they had suggested, he was free, and he somehow knew that that one girl who Nursey also knew and hung out with Bitty was also free, so it had snowballed from there. And they had discovered, around the time they invited Chowder so they could have a goalie, that none of them shared a second language.

Chowder spoke Cantonese at home, because his grandparents had moved from Hong Kong. Eliza described herself as "conversational in Mandarin". Whiskey spoke Portuguese and some Italian. Dex could say "more tea, please" and other useful phrases in Gaelic. Nursey knew a bit of Spanish. Laffy's second language actually was English, of course.

So they kept the conversation in English. Laffy talked about the other French-speaking Tadpoles, because they were most of his social circle. He and Eliza skated off to the side, chatting about Hammie, and especially J-Law, who it seemed like they also shared an acquaintance with. All the connections were starting to hurt Dex's head. Chowder skated along between Dex and Nursey, chattering about how weird it felt to just be skating, and not guarding the goalposts. Whiskey observed both conversations from behind them.

"Dude," said Nursey over Chowder's head. "I dare you to challenge Eliza to a race." When Dex looked over, he was smirking.

That smirk alone was enough to get Dex totally ready to challenge Eliza. He called across to her. "Let's see how fast you are!"

"Oh." She looked over at Nursey, who was sniggering. "Derek, that's cruel." She looked back to Dex. "Take a five-second head start."

Dex was a little taken aback. "Excuse me? I'm not as fast as Bitty, but that doesn't mean I'm not pretty fuckin' fast."

Eliza's look was maybe a little pitying. "Fine. On three?" The others cleared a way for them. "Just one lap, okay?" He nodded.

A minute or so later Dex lay out on the ice, watching Eliza zip back around the edge of the rink to stop beside him. "Wow, you really gave that your all, huh?" She held out a hand to help him up, totally stable on her skates.

"Twenty minutes ago you could barely stand in those."

Eliza shrugged once she'd helped Dex to his feet. "It's like riding a bike."

Nursey was howling with laughter by the benches. Dex gave him the finger, which just made him laugh harder.

"Oh my god," he gasped, as Dex skated over and they all gathered. "That was beautiful. We should see how you do at some hockey against us."

"Huh." Eliza took a look around the rink. "If you've got the time, Derek?"

He nodded. "Just a few points, though. Gotta meet James and Aaron soon."

"You'll have to teach me some of the finer points as we go, but I think I understand the basics already." Eliza pointed at Dex and Laffy. "Team with me?"

"Sure."

Nursey laughed at him again.

Dex got to laugh a few minutes later, as he and Eliza scored again on Whiskey and Nursey's defense. She did a brief celly, and then stuck her tongue out at Nursey.

Laffy also chuckled. "I think that J-Law would this want to see."

"Dude, where is he?" Nursey was obviously trying to distract from how embarrassingly he was getting trounced by a newbie.

Dex remembered what Holster had told him earlier. "He and Holster are at the gym together." He shrugged.

Nursey's eyes widened, and he cackled.

"What?" Eliza looked back at him.

"Just some really great memories from last year."

#

Holster was really good at clearing the gym to hold a private conversation. Well, not the whole gym, that would be unreasonable, but he'd learnt a long time ago that the best time to get a sports player to talk about anything was while you spotted them in the gym. Other people who used the gym regularly seemed to understand that Holster didn't talk much if he was working out normally, so they'd better clear out if he was talking a lot. Or it could get awkward, like that time that he'd brought Nursey here to get a feel for the guy and the conversation had turned graphic. Holster felt sure some of the others who worked out here still had mental scars. He knew he had a few.

So a zone of silence cleared around him and J-Law as soon as Holster opened the conversation. People who didn't come here regularly, feeling exposed, retreated as well. The joys of being a senior.

He was spotting J-Law's bench-pressing when he felt ready to start on the actual conversation he wanted to have. "So, what d'you think of Winter Screw?"

"Huh?" J-Law grunted and put the bar up on its peg. "Dude, that's way away."

Holster shrugged. "Well, y'know, Rans and I have a lot of Tadpoles to set up this year, if they don't find a date themselves." He traded spots with J-Law and added a few weights to the bar. J-Law was tiny and young, and Holster was, after all, a D-Man.

J-Law took his place just a little apprehensively. When he spoke, it was very slowly. "Well, I mean, I haven't been thinking about anything for that yet, if you know what I mean? If I get no game by Christmas, yeah, I'll be down, but I guess I wanna take an actual date? I wanna Cho Chang instead of a Patil twin, I guess."

As Holster finished his set and put the bar back up, the two of them made eye contact, and took a moment to sing, " _Cho Cha-ang_ ," at each other. Holster ducked up from the seat and they swapped places again.

"So, bro, what I'm hearing is that you've got a Cho Chang, huh? Well, who is it? I'll have you know that Rans and I are experts at setting up dates. We got Jack and Camilla set up, and Dex had a girlfriend last year, and we got Bitty a few hookups that we're very proud of. Can't take credit for Chowder and Farmer, though. If Chowder tells you the story of how he met her, you will vomit from the cute. Ooh, is it someone on the Women's Hockey Team? I mean, they're all terrifying and beautiful, even if they hate our guts for getting so far in our league the last few years."

J-Law sat up, massaging his shoulders. "Dude, why the Girls' Hockey Team in particular?"

Holster froze for a moment. "Uh, because they're terrifying and beautiful?"

J-Law smiled one of his evil smiles, the ones Holster was starting to be scared of. "Do you like one of them?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Holster shoved J-Law off the bench and took his place.

J-Law didn't take the spotter's place for a moment. "How did you even meet one of them if they hate our guts?"

"She's in my Ethics of Business Discussion!"

J-Law smiled and took his place. "Cool. Thanks for sharing. Now time to set you straight because I absolutely am not interested in a female hockey player. I'm sure that Lardo could tell you that much, since she sees, like, literally everything. I've got a very different set of interests."

"What, like those puck bunnies in tiny miniskirts?" Holster sat up, and they moved to the change rooms. It had taken him way too long to warm J-Law up to this conversation, and he was still winning. How was it that Holster hadn't learnt anything useful yet? "Bigger girls? I've dated some great girls around campus if you want advice."

J-Law gave him a dirty look. "What's this woman hockey player like?"

"Uh." Holster was a little wary of describing Halley for some reason. "Well, she's super tall, and her abs have abs. She's dark-skinned, but always wears all these bright colours, and I think her cheekbones can cut glass. And she's so nice and smart and good at everything." He took a moment to think of her, and the flowery smell that always followed her everywhere.

"Dude." When Holster looked back, J-Law had a disbelieving tilt to his head. "You just described Ransom."

"Uh, no. That's totally different. Rans is my bro."

"Is that a denial?"

Holster paused as he was about to reply, and ignored J-Law for the moment it took to get into the change room. He searched industriously for his gym bag. "Anything between me and Ransom is totally bro stuff."

J-Law snorted loudly.

"What?"

"Just a meme: 'Dude, it's not a blow-job, it's a bro-job'." J-Law giggled at his own impression of a 'bro voice.'

"I deny all association with you." Holster found his bag at last.

"Nah, dude, I was kidding. You're on the right track for my interests, actually."

Holster was nearly to the shower when that tidbit processed through his brain, turned over in his thoughts, and popped out the other side with a conclusion. "What, you're into guys too?" He probably said it too loud; a few heads turned further into the change room.

J-Law noticed them as well. His eyes shifted in that direction. "I neither confirm nor deny." He pushed past Holster towards the showers.

"And, uh, you're into Hammie specifically."

J-Law turned around and made eye contact with him. His eyes were wide. "I am literally unable to tell you whether or not the conclusion you just reached is true, but Hammie is my best bro." He turned and opened a shower stall.

Holster turned that one over in his mind a bit more. He had to ask J-Law if he was an English major, because that was a lot of information in just one sentence. He stepped into the stall next to J-Law. "Bro, I'm just super glad you're not into a LAX bro, because then I'd have to kill him myself."

#

Ransom's phone pinged with a text: "Chsnging strat with J."

So, clearly Holster's 'genius' plan hadn't worked as intended. Not the first time, considering the whole mess with Nursey last year. Ransom returned his attention to studying. It was still early days in the term yet, but senior class work waits for no man. Unless they decide to take an extra year, which Ransom had foolishly suggested to Holster back when they were freshmen, and been shot down. The way that fees worked at American universities was truly arcane and stupid.

Hammie, sitting across from him, looked up as the phone dropped to the table again. "Holster again? He texts you a lot." He picked up his phone as he got a notification of his own.

"J-Law again? He texts you a lot."

"Don't get cute." Hammie laid his phone under a notebook and returned his attention to the textbook open in front of him. The library was where he studied Psychology, and sometimes Law, and Ransom had taken to joining him to work on one of the many classes he was keeping afloat in.

"What's so important that J-Law had to text you while you're studying?"

"Huh?" Hammie looked up, his eyes unfocussed. "Something about Holster grilling him about a dance?"

"Winter Screw?"

"Yeah, I think. What's that?" Hammie continued to skim down the page.

Ransom paused for a moment. "Basically, a dance where you're supposed to hook up with your date afterwards."

"Isn't that just a dance?"

"Bro, it's not usually an _expectation_. Girls are weird about that stuff, so Winter Screw removes the weird."

"Don't let March hear you say that." Hammie turned a page in his textbook. "Yeah, it still sounds weird."

"Why?"

"Man, I dunno." Hammie finally looked up, and knit his brows together. "It's just, like, the concept confuses me? Why's it specifically one person, and is it just girls? What does Bitty do? How about Holster?"

Ransom shrugged. "My bro and I are usually too busy hooking other people up to do it ourselves. And I'll have you know we are excellent matchmakers, even for Bitty. We've gotten him a partner for both years he's been here."

"Is that the guy he talks about who barfed on his shoes?" Hammie had dived back into the book.

"He was really sweet otherwise! Just ask Bitty."

"Uh-huh."

Ransom leaned back in his chair. "If you wanna take a guy, that's cool. I mean, it's Samwell. Holster and I both went with same girl back in our sophomore year. That was fun, too."

"I hope you didn't wear matching outfits."

"Excuse you, what the fuck makes you think I'd ever dress like my bro?"

Hammie didn't respond; he was too immersed in his readings. Ransom took a look at his syllabus, and then noticed something about the stack of books beside Hammie.

"Bro, how many classes are you taking again?" Ransom swore that he had been reading a different textbook the other day, which was definitely for a different philosophy class.

Hammie took a moment to resurface from the book. "Huh? Uh, maybe six or seven? I lose track sometimes."

"How the fuck did you get so many credits?"

Hammie turned to a notebook and started taking notes on the passage he'd been reading. "I got perfect grades on my SATs, studied my ass off for AP exams, and tested out of language requirements. And I stole some of Bitty's pie for my meeting with my adviser."

Ransom gasped and put a hand to his heart. "Only you could find a nefarious use for pie."

Hammie barely looked up to shoot a sardonic glance across the table. "Bitty tells a story of some pretty nefarious uses you put his first pie to when he first met y'all."

"Oh. Yeah. That. Well, we were young and stupid."

"I'm young and stupid."

"You're young and brilliant. It's depressing." Ransom took another look at the pile of flash cards he was supposed to be making. "You're so much better than me at this school stuff that it's making me feel bad."

"Aw, did I hurt the poor senior's feelings?" Hammie turned a page in the textbook, and took a moment to steal a glance at his computer screen. "I'm sure you've had worse."

"Thanks. That was sure reassuring."

"Good." Hammie returned his full concentration.

There was a silence broken only by riffling papers. Ransom returned his attention to the stack of cue cards in front of him and kept drawing diagrams.

When the pile was significantly smaller and Ransom's hand started to cramp, he looked up across the table again. "How'd you figure out how to balance school and life so fast?"

Again, Hammie took a moment to resurface from his note-taking. "Hm? Uh, I dunno? I'm just good at it, I guess. Study time is study time, and fun time is fun time." He returned to his reading.

"Shhh, quiet in the library," came a giggling voice from behind the nearest shelf. From behind it came a girl with a ponytail of chocolatey ringlets, bearing a phone in a bright yellow case that she was taking pictures with. Behind her came Lardo, who saw Ransom and shrugged.

#

Lardo followed Peggy through the stacks towards the back of the library. She wasn't even involved in this project of Peggy's, which was for some sort of theatre thing, but she'd come along anyway because Peggy had asked so nicely. She still thought the library was a place to enter when finals fell from the sky, not this early in the term, and certainly not to take pictures of the fully functional people studying.

Peggy turned a corner and halted. "Oh." The shelves dead-ended here, making a little cul-de-sac that a few people were sitting in. "Sorry." Peggy snapped a photo and moved along.

"This building is so cool." Peggy darted through another large doorway into a new maze of shelves. "I want to read so much of this stuff."

"Take a lit class." The only things Lardo read from this building were for art history classes.

"That's _boring_ reading, though!" Peggy snapped another picture across one of the studying alcoves, where several faces turned to look at them.

"What's this for, anyway?" Lardo didn't know this part of the library very well, and did worry a bit about getting lost. Libraries were strange and could probably change configuration to trap people who hated reading.

Peggy took a moment to look around in what seemed to be the corner of the room. Lardo could see walls behind the shelves beside her, and there was a corner. "My theatre teacher wants to stick some of _Romeo and Juliet_ in a library. I'm the research assistant."

"Could you be quiet, please?"

The two of them started and looked around. There was a snort on the other side of the nearest shelf, the one without a wall behind it. "Just come to the end of the row. To your right."

Peggy started walking, followed by Lardo. She hadn't known that anyone actually enforced the quiet rule in the library. At the end of the row, she stepped out and looked around.

From the next row over came a cart of books to be shelved, followed by a huge man in a fussy-looking button-up shirt and a handkerchief in one hand.

"James!" Peggy stepped forward to give him a hug, but he waved a hand at her. "Oh, right! Sorry!"

"I said that you should be quiet." James turned away from them and held his handkerchief up to cough into it. "Sorry about that."

Peggy turned to Lardo, who was looking between the two of them. "Lardo, this is James Madison, from Andover. Oh man, look how nice you look!" She gestured to his upper body.

James looked down self-consciously. "Uh, yeah. Thomas wrote me a bit of a training regimen in our freshmen year. The doctor said that exercise might help." He coughed into his handkerchief again.

"You mean our T-Jeffs?" Lardo made to grab the cart, and made a questioning motion to the surrounding rows. James pointed out the door that she and Peggy had come through instead.

Then he took another look at her. "You're the hockey manager, right? The small but terrifying one?"

"That's me." Lardo flashed a smile as she pulled the cart into the room where Hammie was studying.

"Thomas talks about you a lot." As James grabbed the cart from her again, he took a moment to shake her hand. "It was nice to meet you, and good to see you, Peggy, but I have to go. I'm meeting Derek and Aaron in half an hour to study, and I need to finish with this." He gestured to the pile of books on the cart.

"Peggy!"

Peggy whirled, and Lardo turned to see Angelica approaching, dressed in a orange-coloured jacket today.

Lardo felt James and his cart shrink away into the shelves behind her with a muted, "Hello."

Angelica hugged her sister, then said, "I know the hockey captain should be in here. I need to talk to him about some frat drama that he should be aware of."

Lardo pointed into the study nook where Hammie and Ransom were. "Holster usually deals with the drama, but you can tell Ransom if it's urgent. He's just studying."

Angelica made a brief face. "Is he the one who throws a tantrum in here every exam season?"

"I wouldn't call it a tantrum."

"Fine." Angelica swept past Lardo into the library.

Peggy shrugged. "Angel is weird when she has stuff to do."

Peggy went back to her photography, and Lardo explored the library a bit, too. She even found a book she might like in the engineering section, about architecture as art in the nineteenth century. At the very least, it would be useful for this term's art history. When they passed the table where Hammie and Ransom sat, Lardo noticed that Angelica had sat down beside Hammie and was chatting with him animatedly. She shrugged and moved on. Behind the shelves, they heard James's intermittent coughing as they proceeded, so they kept quiet.

Several minutes later, the peace of the library was interrupted. Hammie's voice sailed over the shelves. " _What the fuck? I cannot fucking believe- George has to see this_."

"Please be quiet!" James yelled, and then descended into a fit of coughing.

Lardo shrugged at Peggy's questioning look. "We're the hockey team. We're famous for disrupting the library."

#

Shitty and George were studying when George's phone started to rattle with one text after another. They had been studying for _hours_ , Shitty was sure, and the clock was lying to him and saying only half an hour had passed. At first, George ignored his phone and continued work on his essay, but it continued to buzz until Shitty groaned with frustration. Then he picked it up and looked at the screen.

"Who just fucking died?" asked Shitty after a moment. "Because that is the only fuckin' reason I will accept for that."

"Apparently, I did, or close enough." George's voice was perfectly calm, as always. "Hammie's not very happy about it."

"Wait, you're talking to one of the Taddies?" Shitty slid out of his seat and crossed the room.

George chuckled dryly. "Yes, and he's got some funny ideas about what counts as readable news."

Shitty looked over George's shoulder at the text messages.

"Knight, you are in nothing but underwear."

"I love you too, George."

He sighed. "Just don't sit on my bed, or I _will_ defenestrate you." He held up his phone for Shitty to see.

The screen was on some clickbait news website covered in advertisements. It took Shitty a moment to make out the headline: _Harvard Student Council President Unqualified for Job?_

"What the actual fuck, bro?"

"The article says that I'm both unpredictable and indecisive, which is pretty funny when you think about it." George smiled at his phone screen. "Then it suggests a few other candidates. Oh, look at that, they're all white boys who drive sports cars around campus and couldn't run a ship aground on a sandbar."

"Dude, that's still fuckin' shitty."

George shrugged. "It's hard to be hurt by something this stupid. I just do my job and everything turns out fine. Hammie's pretty up in arms about it, though. D'you know how to stop someone like this from- Oh, it's too late, he's already in the comment section."

George had scrolled down further, revealing that, underneath the comment box, a guest commenter using the name "Publius" was firing invective at the writer of the article. "He should be studying."

Shitty looked it over for a long moment, then had an idea. "Bro, I did this when I was his age. Jack can stop him." He jumped over the pile of laundry on the floor to grab his phone.

"You should be studying, too."

"This'll only take a second, man."

#

Jack was on his way out of the rink in Providence, his nose already buried in the Alexander Hamilton biography, when his phone rang with Shitty's personalised ringtone, which he had installed: an air horn chorus. Some of the other Falconers behind Jack chuckled as he jumped about a foot in the air before digging in his pockets for his phone. "What's up, man?"

"Dude, how do you deal with bad press again?"

Jack didn't really like where that was going. "Don't read it, take my meds if I panic, never let anyone know I heard about it."

He heard Shitty move the phone away and turn to someone in the background. "You heard that, right? This guy knows what's up." His voice came faintly through the phone. "Anyway," he came back into focus, "there might have been an article out about my roommate that one of the Tadpoles at Samwell might have read, and he might be out to defend my roommate's honour."

Jack didn't speak for a moment, crossing the parking lot towards his car. Then he said, "I can relate. To the unwanted defending of honour thing."

"Oh, c'mon, bro, don't be like that."

Jack made a face into his phone.

"I know what expression you have on, ya fucker. It's the Jack Zimmermann 'I put up with a lot of your shit over the years so you'd better put up with mine now' look."

"Not mine. My mom's."

"Anyway, can you cool Hammie off? This latest comment... it's just 'fite me in the pit' in all caps."

Jack closed his eyes for a moment. This was not how he had expected his afternoon to go. "Yes, I can do that."

"Cool, thanks, bye now. Georgie is giving me a look and I should keep doing homework."

Shitty had hung up before Jack could say, "Wait!"

He glared at his phone for a moment. He had never met Hammie, so he didn't have his number, though he heard more than enough from Bitty about him that it felt like he knew him.

"One of your classmates?" Jack looked around to find a couple of the Falconers at his shoulder, standing by his car. Tater had left--he'd said something about a date earlier--but Poots and one of the other new guys were here. Poots had spoken.

"Yeah. Shitty, might have mentioned him."

The other guy's face screwed up. "Oh! The one who was always naked but went to Harvard." He had a pleasant British accent.

Jack's face worked for a moment to assimilate that. "Yeah. That's a- That's a pretty accurate description." He was trying to think of who might have Hammie's number. Bitty, of course, but he had an important vocab quiz on Monday, and they were calling later anyways.

"Hey, what was he calling about?" The British guy again. Jack remembered that his jersey said "Church" on it, but he hadn't been really nicknamed yet.

Jack shrugged. "Just some drama at school. Hey, I gotta deal with that, so can we talk tomorrow?"

Poots and Church looked a little crestfallen, but didn't say anything more as he climbed into his car and drove back to his apartment.

Once there, he sat in the driver's seat for a moment, still thinking over who to call, when it occurred to him that Nursey probably knew Hammie's number. He knew everyone's number, and he probably wouldn't occupy Jack with an extended conversation, like Holster would. He pulled out his phone and dug into his contacts to find Nursey.

#

"Nah, man, you're welcome, it's chill. Hope that Hammie doesn't hurt himself." With that, Nursey tapped the end call button and opened the door to the study room in the depths of the library again. Aaron chewed on his pencil and held _The Wretched of the Earth_ open with his tablet. James read what looked like the same paragraph as he had been on when Nursey stepped out of the room a few minutes ago. It was one of the really dense ones.

A few minutes after Nursey sat back down, he jabbed at a page in frustration. "What the actual fuck is a 'bourgeois bourgeoisie'? My head hurts."

Aaron looked over at him. "Hey, Nurse. Chill."

Nursey flicked an eraser at him. "Hate you," he grumbled, and sank lower in his chair.

James looked up at them. "It's definitely very intense. Not sure if that's a good or a bad thing." He turned to the side and coughed into his handkerchief.

"I'm just glad we don't need to write an essay on this, just prepare the discussion questions." Nursey opened the book again with bad grace.

A few minutes later, he was glaring at the page again. "Ugh, this is hard."

James didn't move his head when he looked at him. "You picked the class that we should take together."

"Doesn't mean I have to like it." Nursey went back to poring through the epic, dense paragraphs.

It was probably about twenty minutes later when Aaron pushed the book away from him and let it close at last. "Definitely got some important ideas in there. But I'm falling asleep just reading it." He yawned.

"I know, right?" Nursey pushed the book away as well. James shrugged and closed his copy. "Like, this is so important for the world right now, but why does it hurt so much to read."

"I think it's interesting." James coughed again. "Denying both capitalism _and_ communism in the sixties was a pretty big deal."

Aaron took a look at the notes he'd taken. "The language is very forceful and convincing, and everything is opinionated and firm. Almost kind of too pushy, I think."

Nursey shrugged. "Good to read for class, probably. But I wouldn't read it otherwise. It hurts too much."

"Break time?" Aaron was already making to stand.

"Let's go." Nursey shoved the book into his bag and rose, then led the way out the door of the room and up towards the cafe upstairs.

James and Burr were still disagreeing behind him as they passed through the upstairs rooms. Nursey swore he heard Hammie's voice somewhere, but disregarded it when he didn't see anyone. When they stood in line, Nursey decided it was time to end discussion time on books about revolution. He was the least black guy of the three of them, and it might be Samwell, but there were always assholes around.

"Yo, have you guys been talking to the other Andover kids."

James shrugged and said, "Thomas," very quietly. Aaron just raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah, thought not. They've been spending a lot of time at the Haus lately, if you want to come hang out."

James nodded. "Thomas mentioned that the other day."

"I will be staying far, far away from your frat house, then."

Nursey rolled his eyes. "Aaron, they're not that bad. Angelica's fun, and I bet she's read all this stuff, too."

"I don't doubt it." Aaron smiled. "She can read anything if it has to do with social justice."

"And enjoy it." Nursey was horrified at her fortitude, really.

"Hey, I'm enjoying Fanon!"

Nursey and Aaron both looked at him. "Bro, you're a Library Sciences Major, of course you're chill with this stuff."

James narrowed his eyes at Nursey. "How does that follow?"

"By not thinking too hard about it is how."

They waited in line until Nursey could get his coffee. It helped to clear some of the Fanon-induced fuzziness from his brain. Aaron got the same as him, and James got a croissant, and ignored Nursey's watering mouth.

"Bro, I wish I could eat that so bad."

"Why can't you?" James's mouth was full when he spoke, which Nursey thought should be something not allowed ever.

"Because Ransom is somewhere in this building and he can sense non-pie cheating."

"Non-pie cheating specifically."

Aaron ushered them out the door to the cafe. "It's how the team get people to keep coming back; one of their forwards makes obscenely good pie."

"That's... novel."

"That's what I said."

Nursey needed to distract himself from the croissant now. "Hey, Aaron, doesn't your little sis play hockey?"

Aaron's face lit up. "Yeah, Theodosia's playing coed upstate right now. She's doing really well, too. My uncle's letting it go where it will a few more years, and I'm working on him to let her try for NWHL if she wants to."

James coughed into his handkerchief and then kept eating. "Isn't that your girlfriend's name?"

"Yes." Aaron looked prim. "You might have noticed I call her Theo. No, it doesn't make anything less awkward."

"Dude, I'm not convinced you have a girlfriend." Nursey chuckled.

"Excuse me?"

"Well, I've never met her around campus-"

"She studies nursing in Boston."

"She has the same name as your sister-"

"It's very creepy."

"She was apparently with another guy when you met-"

"We don't talk about him. He was a douche."

"And I know you've hooked up with four other girls, at least."

Aaron paused, his mouth open. He closed it. "You saw those, huh?"

"Oh my god, you're not cheating on your imaginary girlfriend, are you?" Nursey made an exaggerated incredulous face.

Aaron looked down his nose at him. "If you must know, we don't see each other much, and we've negotiated an open relationship."

Nursey turned over some of the stuff he'd learnt over the last year, especially from observation of Ransom and Holster. "So, you can fuck other chicks, she can fuck other dudes, but you're still an item?"

"If you want to put it crudely. And both of us are pretty well gender blind."

James sniffed. "Weird."

Nursey grinned. "Cool! We can be pan-pals." He held up his hand for a high five.

Aaron ignored him.

"Come on, that was a good pun!"

"It was not, Derek."

"I liked it!"

"I wonder what Angelica would think of it?"

"You wouldn't!"


	4. Chapter 4: In Which Many Characters Eat Pie in the Living Room

At the start of October, Bitty threw himself down in an armchair across from the green couch. Eliza eyed it for a moment, then shook out her cardigan like a throw and sat on top of it. Peggy happily installed herself beside her sister, her attention focussed on the slice of pie on her plate.

"I didn't know languages were so much _work_." By a happy coincidence, he and Eliza attended the same introductory French class, so they studied together, usually while Hammie studied Latin in the kitchen. Which meant Bitty could complain about it to her.

Eliza's smirked. "Bitty, have you ever tried to learn Chinese?"

"No?"

"It's an absolutely beautiful language, but learning it is like pulling teeth. They don't use Roman letters, there are no verb tenses, and you need to get the tonal accent just right on every single word, or you might call your mother a horse."

Bitty closed his eyes in defeat. "So you're saying I should suck it up?"

"No, I'm just saying that there's a lot of beautiful languages, and they're all awesome! Do you know that Chinese and Japanese are hard for English speakers because they don't rely on stressed syllables to create meaning? It's really cool."

Bitty made a halfhearted grunt of displeasure. "Is this when you tell me you're a language studies major?"

"Nope!" Eliza forked up a huge mouthful of pie and swallowed it. "Engineering. I didn't have any electives last year, but I want to learn a language."

Peggy leaned forward and stage-whispered, "Eliza's so Asian, right?"

Eliza, without a change in expression, smacked her sister on the back of the head. "I should text that to Angel."

Peggy gasped. "You would _not_."

Eliza ignored her. "Languages are my passion. They're like another type of math that's based on how people think, rather than how the universe works."

There was a brief silence, then Bitty said, "So, you've learnt Chinese..."

Eliza perked up and swallowed her pie. "Mandarin and Tagalog, back in high school. My race was a huge part of my identity then, so I wanted to learn some Asian languages. I took an online course on American Sign Language last year, I'm taking French this year, and I have German Duolingo." She pointed at her purse, which was covered in a blue knit protector, to gesture to her phone.

"Oh yeah, that's not at all intimidating," said Peggy. "'Ooh, here's Eliza Schuyler, she's not that smart, she only speaks five languages and learns two more while studying Engineering!' You make us all look like morons." Despite her words, Bitty detected the fondness in her tone. Peggy's way of complimenting people tended to be backhanded, in his experience.

"I think it's awesome!" said Bitty, before Eliza could say anything. "I mean, if you enjoy it, and you can do it, you may as well, right?" He didn't realise that he was remembering figure skating until he'd spoken.

Eliza looked him over for a moment. She must have heard the wistful cast of his voice. "Yes, that's true," was all she said at first.

There was another silence. Peggy, unaware, inhaled her pie and looked around for more. Bitty stood up to lead her to the tin in the kitchen, then headed back to his chair. It was too far into the week for him to have Monday-type energy. Eliza was still watching him when he sat back down, her own pie only half-eaten.

"I'm not sure I ever heard the story of how you started playing hockey."

Bitty started. "Oh, uh, not even from J-Law? I know he knows it, and he tells everyone everything."

"No, John wouldn't talk about another person like that."

"Well, you're probably wondering 'cause of how small I am, right?"

Eliza twitched her head in a nod.

"I'll just tell you the quick version for now: I was a figure skater at the start of high school, but there were a lot of reasons that didn't work, so I dropped it and switched to hockey. It was a way to keep skating, and it turned out pretty good for me."

Eliza nodded again. "I figure skated in high school. Did all my practicing at the rink where Shitty and Nursey played."

"Really?" When Eliza nodded, Bitty launched straight in. "Wow, I might've seen you skate! I mean, I watched just about all the skating online or on TV. What level did you compete at?"

"Oh." Eliza laughed a little. "I wasn't competing. I did think I recognised you from something I'd watched once, though. That's, uh, that's why I asked."

After a moment, Bitty asked, "Why did you stop?"

"Well, I mean..." Eliza trailed off. Then she said, "My parents asked me to after tenth grade. I agreed that school had to be my focus until graduation. And I don't really like competitions. I just liked the skating."

"I know what you mean." Well, Bitty liked competing, too; it gave him a goal to work towards. But skating itself was why he had done it, and why he had decided to play hockey.

Peggy emerged from the kitchen with a towering glass of milk and what looked like half the pie. "I'm ba-ack!" she sang.

"You can't possibly eat all of that." Bitty had seen Holster eat that much pie in one go, but he played a lot of hockey and was about twice Peggy's mass.

"Fucking watch me."

"She'll do it, too."

Peggy settled on the couch, balancing her precarious pie and glass of milk with admirable skill. "I need to stake my claim before the boys get back, anyway. When are they getting back?"

Bitty checked his phone. "The Taddies should be getting out of class now. They'll get here in a few minutes."

"Is _Alexander_ going to be with them?" Peggy's eyes shone as she said it.

Eliza smacked her on the back of the head again, nearly upsetting the milk. "What do you care if Alexander's with them?" Eliza's cheeks, Bitty noted, shone a light shade of pink.

"Well, you were talking about him so much this morning." Peggy simpered, one hand on her chest. "'Oh, do you think _Alexander_ will notice me in this skirt?' 'Maybe _Alexander_ will want to talk to me today.' 'Don't you just think _Alexander's_ eyes look so amazing when he's excited?' Just ask him out already." Every time Peggy said 'Alexander' she did it with a sort of singsong that made Eliza wince.

"I don't sound like that. And that's not how it works, anyway."

"You like Hammie?" Bitty had noticed that Eliza spent a lot of time sitting near Hammie when they all did homework together, but he had never thought much of it. She got along well with him and J-Law, like they were all on the same wavelength most of the time. It wasn't on the level of the Ransom and Holster D-Man connection, but the three of them had something.

"Not like it matters." Eliza's tone turned bitter. "John's got him wrapped around his finger."

"Excuse me?" Bitty was certain he would have noticed that. They were close, yeah, but no closer than Hammie was to Eliza, or probably any number of other first years. Then again, how often did he do anything apart from the team, J-Law, or Eliza? Other than studying, but that wasn't an activity where you met many people.

Eliza smiled suddenly. It was small, and a little bitter, but there. "Just watch them a bit more closely, and you'll see it."

Well, they would be here soon. Bitty would certainly be watching.

#

Hammie always cracked his neck, first one way, then the other, when he walked out of the English building, and Tango wanted to know why. So he asked.

Hammie seemed rather taken aback by the question. "Uh, I dunno," he replied. "I just, sort of, do it? It helps me focus?" His hair wasn't in a ponytail today, probably because of the cold, so it looked like it tangled up in his bag straps every time he moved his head. Tango didn't see how that could be comfortable, but he had learnt not to question another man's 'flow' after he'd asked Shitty about his hair at the first kegster. He had been too used to seeing pictures of him with shoulder-length flow to get used to the close-cropped look.

J-Law, as always, came out right behind Hammie and linked arms with him. He would have been an awkward half a head taller than Hammie if he ever stood up straight, but J-Law's posture was always comfortably hunched over, so he stood right at the perfect height to attach himself to Hammie at every opportunity. "How was class, people?" he asked, just as soon as he was as close to Hammie as possible. That was something else that Tango had learnt not to ask about; hockey players, even Bitty, got very defensive when Tango asked them about who they were with or wanted to be with. Laffy hurried out after him, looking frazzled. His ponytail was always a frizzy mess after an English class, because he tugged on it whenever he read English.

"Class was good," said Whiskey, letting Hammie launch into a tirade against his Philosophy professor. Something about someone called Voltaire who the professor was deliberately misreading? Tango pulled out his phone and took a note about looking up Voltaire when he was back in his dorm. After all, Hammie was in no shape to present anything like a simple explanation for him. If there was one thing Tango was learning, it was that making Hammie give a simple explanation was an exercise in futility.

As J-Law steered Hammie away from the building in the general direction of the Haus, Mullet came jogging out to join them. He took the same English class as Whiskey and Tango, but he always stayed behind to ask the professor something. Tango wanted to know why he did it so consistently. "We've got company," he rumbled, interrupting Hammie.

"That chick again?" J-Law craned his neck around.

"She's got a name," said Hammie. "Maria. She's pretty nice, just persistent."

"What do you mean, persistent?" Tango had to ask. He'd never noticed anything about Maria--pronounced muh-RYE-uh--that might mark her as 'persistent.'

"Oh, you'll see." Mullet huffed a breath out between his teeth, and then she arrived.

Tango did see. He saw a lot. Last week, it had still been warm enough that plenty of girls wore short shorts and crop tops, but the weather had changed, and Maria was still wearing the same clothing. Her shirt glowed violently crimson to match her lips and the highlights in her endless shampoo commercial hair. "How are we all, boys?" she asked, looking straight at Hammie. Yeah, Tango understood why she was 'persistent.'

"We're good." J-Law always seemed confused when Maria showed up, and Tango noticed that he was very resolute about only looking her in the eyes, never anywhere else. "Just headed to the Haus to hang out and do homework."

Maria fell into step beside Hammie, between him and Laffy, and swung her small schoolbag up into her arms. "Oh, do you mind if I come with you? I'm so behind on my English work, and I can't work at the sorority house." Tango wanted to know how she fit any work into that tiny bag. Maybe she did it all on an iPad.

"Why can't you work there?" he asked.

Maria pushed her hair back. "I just get distracted all the time. And, I mean, I don't mind the chance to get to spend time with the hottest men at Samwell."

"Isn't that just as distracting?" asked J-Law.

"Please, I'm not a _man_. I don't drool at the sight of an attractive body."

"We do not!"

"Leave it." Whiskey didn't even touch J-Law, but the tension went out of his posture. "Bitty will just feed you lots of pie."

Maria's smile was radiant. "I can't wait. He's a treasure."

The conversation flowed away from that, and they wandered across the quad in the general direction of the Haus while Laffy asked them about English idioms he'd encountered in the assigned books. Maria, Tango noticed, was very quiet, but laughed and commented every time Hammie said something. Tango was more concerned with asking what Laffy would say in French instead of 'When pigs fly'. That led to Hammie and J-Law butting in with what they would say in their French rather than Quebecois French. Then Maria asked why it was all so different, which led to a miniature history lecture form Hamilton. Halfway through that, Tango pulled his phone out and began to write down all of the questions he would have to look up the answers to later.

Tango watched as both Maria and J-Law hung on Hammie's every word. It was probably nice, being that desirable. Tango felt more than heard Whiskey and Mullet fall back to walk on either side of him.

"How's the sewing going?" Mullet asked about this pretty much every time they were together.

Tango swung his backpack over so he could reach it. "Oh, I've been practicing more, but I couldn't get this seam to work-" He pulled one of his winter coats out from the bag. It was good to practice on, since it was about three sizes too big and from the thrift store at home; he wanted to adjust it to fit him a bit better. He had never spent so much time around sewing machines before.

Mullet looked it over, pointed out where Tango had made his mistake, and offered to take him by the sewing lab after dinner to show him how to fix it. Tango nodded, and then asked, "What are you working on right now?"

Mullet reached into his satchel, which was full of swatches and covered with practice embroidery, to pull out several sheets of paper. "Here." He passed them to Tango. Some had paper doll-type human figures on them, with faint pencil marking the cloths, and some just had big flat spreads of patterns on them. "I'm marked on design, not product, for this term, but I want to see what I can do to make some eighteenth-century clothes more mobile and functional for everyday wear."

Mullet had never struck Tango as the type of guy who would work on period costume, but this was pretty cool. "How do you do that?" He pointed at the voluminous skirt on one of the figures. He had seen it often enough in movies and stuff, but never understood how it held itself up.

"Well, there are a few different ways." Mullet launched into an explanation of bustles, petticoats, and hoop skirts, and pointed to his designs in turn. He seemed to have tried all of them, and knew how to answer Tango's questions about how to make them, too. Whiskey leaned in as well, looking interested. He had been paying his attention to Hammie, J-Law, and Maria until now. Laffy had pulled out the book for English and was continuing to read the assigned pages, a lock of curly hair wound around one finger as he sounded English words out.

"Your Halloween costumes must be good," was Whiskey's only comment, which launched another explanation of how to design a good costume, rather than buying it. Tango listened in awe, his mind full of possibilities. He had wanted to dress as The Riddler for Halloween for years, but was always discouraged by how few people he knew dressed up, and costumes were always expensive to buy.

#

Chowder was a bit upset that he couldn't hang out with Farmer for longer, but Dex and Nursey had managed to agree that, as much as they were kind of friends, they had trouble being civil without Chowder around. So, they had hauled him over to the Haus as soon as he finished his date.

Chowder didn't really mind, though. Dex and Nursey were important to him, in a different sort of way than Farmer. He hated it when they argued, and he was happy that they could keep it to a reasonable level with him around. It was unsettlingly similar to life with his siblings back home.

They had said hi to Bitty, Eliza, and Peggy on their way into the Haus, but now sat on Chowder's bed with their homework spread around them. Chowder had managed to figure out a schedule that let him take classes with each of them, so his work overlapped with theirs, but Dex was doing his art credits in the most basic English lit, and Nursey's science credits came from Psychology, so they had no overlap. The line dividing their parts of the bed was bare.

"Look, I'm just saying that the other Frogs are being super weirder than usual," Nursey said, continuing his conversation with Dex. "I've never seen Seabs be so pally with T-Jeffs. I think that someone else is making them work together."

"And I think that you've spent too long watching soap operas." Dex seemed to have mastered the skill of typing while talking. "We're a hockey team. Why would someone manipulate guys on an NCAA hockey team? I think it's because they're both third line this year."

"Because we got along so well when we were placed on the same line last year."

"Hey, we're talking now!"

"Nursey, can you help me with this? I'm really bad at writing irony." Chowder pushed their creative writing assignment across the bed, between Dex and Nursey. Nursey read it over and started spouting possible stories for Chowder to write. Dex grunted and got back to his own work.

A few minutes later, Chowder was almost finished an outline when he heard the sound of a group of people coming up the stairs to the front porch outside his window. "We're here!" sang J-Law as he opened the door. "Oh, hi, Peggy."

Bitty's voice sailed up the stairs. "Boys, come down for a quick snack!"

Chowder was first out the door, and he pulled the knob closed behind him. He heard Dex curse loudly, but he had rattled halfway down the stairs before the other two got the door open to come down after him.

So Chowder was first in line for pie, behind someone who had never gotten a chance to have Bitty's pie before. She accepted a plate of cherry pie from Bitty and turned around to head to the living room to eat. She gave Chowder a tight-lipped, closed sort of smile. It reminded him of how Nursey sometimes looked right before a game against a really hard team. He shrugged and took his pie. He got the biggest slice.

Hammie introduced them all to Maria Reynolds once they were spread out around the living room. She just smiled at them all from her seat at the foot of the armchair Hammie, J-Law, and Eliza had commandeered. Bitty sighed at the sight of them in his usual chair and sat down in front of the TV.

The conversation split into smaller groups from there. Peggy sat on the armrest of the green couch, talking about costumes or something with Mullet, Whiskey, and Tango. Tango, for once, looked dumbstruck. The chair group, all three of them sitting on top of and around each other, chattered away about all their homework. Bitty and the Frogs sat with Laffy on the floor, sharing advice on what professors not to have in second term. Chowder had liked all his classes last year, but apparently it was very different for Bitty, Dex, and Nursey. There were some professors Chowder liked who they started to ream out mercilessly.

"Dude, you should go to the Halloween kegster as Franklin if he's so scary," Nursey told Bitty. "Really strike some fear into the crowd."

"I would, but he'd just show up behind me and assign an essay about the history of Halloween in America." Bitty laughed nervously. "And I already know how I'm dressing."

"Oh?" Nursey leaned closer with a conspiratorial smile.

Bitty coughed. "I'll text a picture to you later."

Nursey shrugged, mollified. "Yo, Chowder, how are you dressing up?"

"Oh, Farmer got me a shark onesie for my birthday, and it's the right colour and everything, so I was going to wear that, but then I thought it might be too simple. I mean, everyone puts so much work into their Halloween costumes, so I'm thinking that maybe I could change it to look like that one shark Pokemon. What do you think?"

"How would you change it to look like a Sharpedo?" Dex looked disturbed at the thought. Maybe the Pokemon didn't look anything like a real shark? Chowder hadn't played any Pokemon in years.

"What is a _Pokemon_?" Laffy looked around at them. "Something close to a shark?"

"Dude!" Nursey rocked forward, and Dex automatically reached out to steady his plate of pie. "We could totally go as a triumvirate!"

"Excuse me?" Dex looked like he wanted to wash the hand that he'd put so close to Nursey's 'Art Major Weirdness', as he called it.

Nursey pointed at Bitty. "Think of some media you like!"

"What? Uhh... Vlogbrothers!"

All four of them stared at Bitty. No one else noticed; they were all too busy talking.

"Sorry. I choked."

"Bad example!" Nursey pointed at Hammie, J-Law, and Eliza. "All of you! Think of some media you like!"

The three faces, plus Maria, all turned to look at them in surprise, and then concentrated. J-Law said, " _The Avengers!_ " almost immediately.

Nursey clapped once. "Good choice!"

Eliza said, " _The Last Herald-Mage_."

Nursey clapped again. "I don't know that one!"

Hammie's face screwed up in concentration for several seconds longer, until he finally said, " _Star Wars_?"

Nursey applauded furiously. "Great example!"

Very quietly, Maria said, " _Harry Potter_."

Nursey applauded harder. "I like this one! Bitty, get her some extra pie."

He was just turning back to Chowder, Dex, Laffy, and Bitty when a book came flying from Eliza's general direction to land in Nursey's lap. "Uh. _Magic's Pawn_?"

"Read it. It's good."

After turning it over to read the blurb, Nursey shrugged and stuck it under his knee. "Anyway, triumvirates. That's your Harry, Ron, and Hermione. The Luke, Han Solo, and Leia. It's not as nice a fit, but, uh, Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor."

"Vanyel, Yfandes, Tylendel-slash-Stefen!" Eliza started to extricate herself from the tangle in the armchair.

"What?"

"Read the book."

"I'm sorry, you only just now handed it to me. Chill."

Dex frowned. "So, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are also a triumvirate?"

"Knew you'd get it eventually, Dexy!"

"Why do we go to Halloween as one of these?" It was interesting, yeah, but Chowder wanted to wear his onesie to the kegster.

"I mean, it shows we're a team! And themed costumes like that are pretty cool."

"You mean pretty nerdy."

"Dude, which of us is in Computer Science?"

"Guys!" pleaded Chowder. "Anyway, those mostly have at least one girl in them. How do we do that?"

Nursey grinned and thrust his chest out a bit.

"Only at Samwell," muttered Laffy. Dex rolled his eyes.

Bitty looked up at Eliza, who stood over them. "Hey, what if you and J-Law and Hammie did one of those 'triumvirates'?"

Eliza's eyes widened suddenly. "Great idea. I call Luke!"

J-Law's head appeared from behind Hammie's back. "Why are we doing _Star Wars_?"

"Because Hammie's seen it."

"I haven't." Hammie looked up from taking notes on his phone. "I've read about it."

Everyone in the room looked at him. Even Chowder found that a little hard to believe.

J-Law shoved Hammie off the armchair and on top of Maria, who made a tiny noise of surprise. "You disgust me. We're watching that this weekend. No excuses." He turned to Eliza, who seemed to be looking something up on her phone. "How do we get the costumes?"

"Working on it."

Mullet and Peggy looked at each other. "We can do it!" they chorused.

"What?" J-Law and Eliza looked surprised.

Mullet shrugged. "I'm ahead on my project. It would be pretty 'swawesome to make a Leia dress."

"I can do your hair!" Peggy jumped up and skittered around Eliza to grab at her pigtails. "I'd have to cut some off to layer it..."

"Can I help?" Tango looked between Mullet and Peggy several times.Whiskey grabbed the plate from his lap before it fell onto the floor.

Hammie extricated himself from Maria, who hadn't moved at all from where she had collapsed on her back. "Sounds good. 'Scuse me." He headed to the kitchen with a few empty plates.

Maria beamed like the sun had just come out. "I would like to see this," she said to J-Law.

Chowder felt a hard tap on his shoulder. He turned around to see Nursey looking very serious. He poked Dex hard in the side to get his attention, too. "So, that's a bust. Are we thinking Pokemon, or a different theme?"

Dex groaned in disgust and followed Hammie into the kitchen with all of their plates.

#

Bitty's phone went off a few minutes later, while Laffy looked at his French homework. Just like when Jack looked it over, Bitty wasn't too sure that it would be much help, since the professor was very clear that this was France French they were studying, not Quebec French, but Laffy was so excited to have someone else to talk to. Bitty pulled his phone out of the pocket of his jeans to see Jack's name on the screen. He accepted the call, of course.

"Hello, Jack!"

"Bitty, I found your History textbook. Why was it in the back of the medicine cabinet?"

"Oh." Bitty was glad he at least had the grace to blush. "I maybe... didn't want to take it home this week."

"Leaving your homework until later doesn't make it go away, _mon chou_." Jack was laughing, though. Bitty imagined how he had probably found it: maybe he'd gotten home with a headache today, and reached into the lower shelf, which was below his line of sight, to find a huge book of American history that didn't belong to him.

"Hey, do you want to talk to the Frogs and Taddies?"

"Nice deflection. Almost succeeded. Let's see them, then."

Bitty turned to Laffy, who vibrated with excitement when he realised who Bitty was speaking to. Bitty turned on the camera, and Laffy waved furiously.

Jack snorted when Bitty panned around the room. Everyone looked up at the camera and waved. "When did you make the living room into your private _salon_ , Bitty?"

"Looks classier than a kegster, right?"

"Yeah, I might fall asleep during one of these, rather than hide."

Bitty gasped and put a theatrical hand to his chest as he turned the camera to face him. "I am _not_ boring, Jack Zimmermann!"

When he looked up, Bitty saw Mullet raise his eyebrows at that. After a momentary panic, Bitty put that aside. Jack was okay with one guy figuring it out as long as he didn't spread it, and as loud as Mullet was, he mostly spread stories about himself, not other people.

Laffy edged into view of the camera. "Euh, _allo, Coach Z_." He smiled hopefully.

Laffy hadn't mentioned that before! Hammie wandered back into the room, and watched curiously as Jack's face lit up. "Did I coach you once?"

"Not me, my _petit frere_ , Georges." Yeah, Laffy was almost certainly too old to have been among even the oldest of Jack's students. "I picked him up a few times."

"Jack, this is Laffy, the Quebecois guy." The introduction was probably useless at this point, as Bitty passed his phone over to Laffy.

Jack nodded. He remembered this Georges kid, then. " _Pour Lafayette?_ "

" _Oui!_ "

And then they were off, and Bitty couldn't hope to follow the rapid-fire French. J-Law and Hammie watched with interest, though. Bitty stood up and edged over to Hammie. "What are they talking about?"

"Pee-wee hockey, I think." Hammie's expression was the one he usually reserved for a hard homework question. "I only understand, like, half of it. Jack coached in Montreal, right?"

"Yep. Before coming to Samwell."

"Laffy's his fan. Comes with the proximity, I guess." Bitty noted that Hammie was speaking as if he hadn't continued to screech like a fanboy every time Bitty called with Shitty in public. He wanted to talk to George Washington again.

"Did you play Pee-wee?" Bitty, of course, hadn't, and he had trouble imagining Hammie in it, either. At five, he'd probably been too busy reading Virgil in the original Latin or something.

"Nope." Hammie didn't go any further than that. A surprise; once he started talking, his problem was usually saying too much. "My baby brother plays, though."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, my family sent him to stay with some friends down in New York for a while. They have him with a co-ed team somewhere upstate." Bitty couldn't help but notice the 'my family' rather than 'my parents'. Hammie was so easy to read about everything else, but Bitty realised that he'd never talk about his home in more than generalities. It was probably his own business.

"Maybe he'll have a chance to come to some of our games, then!"

Hammie smiled. "Philip'd like that."

"So he wants to be like his big brother?"

Now Hammie laughed. "No! He wants to be Kent Parson, actually." Bitty's smile froze. "He keeps telling me that he'll go straight to the draft and get picked first when he's old enough. Of course, everyone else on his team is saying the same thing. There's this one girl, actually, he calls her Theo, who's almost as good as him. He'll get better as he gets older, though."

"Yo, let me talk to Zimmermann!" J-Law hovered behind Laffy and tried to snatch the phone from him. Mullet had returned to talking with Peggy and Whiskey, but Tango had curious eyes on Bitty's phone. Eliza had a book out.

Bitty plucked the phone out from between them. "And that's that, you lose celebrity privileges."

"Awww, Bits!"

"Next time, don't crowd around like flies on a porch light." Bitty headed for the stairs. "You okay, Jack?"

"They're funny."


	5. Chapter 5: In Which the Halloween Kegster Takes Place

The Halloween kegster was always a big deal for the costume-inclined at the Haus, but Lardo had counted far too much on her memory of an era before there was a team member who sewed his own costumes.

There was not a single styrofoam dick-mounted wrecking ball in sight this year. What there was was a shapeless mound of white satin--Lardo thought it was satin--on the kitchen table, beside a small pile of hairdressing tools and two artfully grimy shirts. There were also, again, the usual superhero costumes, two different onesies, and one _Welcome to Night Vale_ cosplay.

Lardo had decided early that too much costume would get in the way of party games. It had before. So she had opted for something that wouldn't hinder her mobility while still being impressive.

"'You may look like a bride, but you will never bring your family honour'!" she screeched to Peggy and Mullet, who were waiting to start their work.

Peggy perched on Bitty's clean counter again--he wasn't in the room to see, of course. "You did all that makeup yourself, Lardo? You need to show me how!"

Lardo arched one artful, running eyebrow and pursed her lips, twisting the face paint beard as she moved. "It took, like, three hours. My wrist is cramping. I'm so happy I did it so early." At least she was just in black tights and a fairly loose shirt.

Mullet coughed. "And you get to freak out everyone who's still in class."

"That too." Lardo heard footsteps and laughter in the front yard. "Excuse me."

Peggy threw herself to the front kitchen window as Lardo swanned out of the kitchen to the front door. She heard her and Mullet giggling as they watched their unsuspecting friends approach the door. Lardo heard a creak on the steps, then on the porch. She threw the door open in J-Law's face.

"Fa Mulan!" Lardo glared up in all their faces. J-Law took a surprised step back and almost tripped over Hammie.

Eliza didn't miss a beat. "Present!"

"Speaking without permission." Lardo realised that she needed to get a clipboard if she was going to do this again.

Laughing, Eliza folded Lardo into a quick hug and went into the kitchen, where Peggy cackled. J-Law shot Lardo a thumbs up, and Hammie shrugged. He passed on arm across J-Law's shoulders, as if to steady him. Lardo followed them back into the kitchen to begin hunting up something to use as a clipboard.

"Did Mullet make that sash for you?" Eliza turned from admiring her costume's shirt. "He's been so overworked. Thank you so much," she said to Mullet. He grinned self-consciously.

"Nah, my sister and I made it over the break. She's Ling."

"Aren't you Vietnamese?"

"Yeah, and George Takei's Korean, but he still played the Great Ancestor." Lardo shrugged.

J-Law couldn't seem to help himself from smiling. "You're the tiniest Matchmaker ever!" he said, then giggled helplessly.

"Peggy!" Peggy nodded. "Our first victim of the night will be Mister Han Solo!"

"Noted!" Peggy's thumb flew across her phone.

"Aww!"

Hammie picked up his costume. "How do I put this on?" he asked, as it snaked down to the floor to make a puddle of white. He poked at the dress dubiously.

"Over the head," said Eliza.

"How do I take a shit?"

"Carefully." Lardo loved the look of dresses, but wearing them sucked. Eliza nodded at her evaluation.

"Oh my god, you're going to look so amazing!" J-Law danced around Hammie, and held the dress up on him. "And you're basically Princess Leia, so it's perfect!"

"I still don't see it."

Eliza put down her shirt. "These look incredible. Should we put them on now, or do I have some time for homework?" She hefted the backpack beside the table.

"Yeah, I have work to do, too." Hammie moved to put his dress down on the table and swing his enormous backpack down to the floor.

"Oh! Let's do them now!" Peggy scooped the shirt up again. "I want to see the look of them on you, and you can do homework while I'm doing your hair."

"Okay. Just give me a moment." Eliza dug in her bag for a moment, threw some hefty textbooks on the table, and pulled out a black halter-top looking construction, stiffened with ribbing.

"Ooh! You bought a binder!" Peggy snatched it and poked at it. "All the girls will have their eyes on you when you're wearing this!"

Eliza jabbed her sister in the side and grabbed her binder back as Peggy doubled over. "Is there a bathroom I can use to change?" She lifted her Luke Skywalker costume off the table, too.

"Go into the basement and lock the door," Lardo said. "It's cleaner than the bathrooms."

Eliza didn't disguise her look of shock as she left the kitchen.

"The bathrooms aren't that bad." J-Law flopped down and lifted his costume up. "They aren't worse than dorm bathrooms."

"You've never been in a girl's dorm, have you?"

"Ew!" J-Law made a face. "Why would I want to go in there? I might be scarred for life."

"Just think about turtles and ignore it." Hammie had pulled out a small notebook from somewhere. Lardo swore he hadn't touched his backpack in the seconds she'd turned away, but he also had a thick Philosophy textbook open on the table in front of him.

"Not helping!

"Why does Eliza have a binder, anyway?"

Peggy shrugged, running her hands through J-Law's hair. "We all get an allowance; Eliza decided to get a binder. Angelica would literally murder me if I questioned it. Ooh, we're going to have to straighten this!" Peggy picked up the straightening iron and looked at J-Law's hair with somewhat unwholesome glee.

"No! Why can't I just be a curly-haired Han Solo?"

"Because Eliza is crushing her boobs against her ribs right now in the name of costume." Hammie didn't look up as he spoke.

J-Law stuck out his tongue. "Only because you asked so nicely."

There was a small cough from the door. Eliza looked nervously around the room. "Lardo, can you help me with this? There's no instruction manual for how to put this thing on."

Peggy howled with laughter. "The great engineer can't even put on the King of Sports Bras!" she squealed.

"I'm texting that one to Angelica."

"You wouldn't!"

Lardo closed and locked the basement door behind her before Peggy could hurl herself through to steal her sister's phone.

"So, what's the deal with the binder?"

Eliza held it out to her. "Well, these straps are really confusing, and it's sized for me, but I don't usually wear anything so heavy-duty."

"Okay." Lardo gestured for Eliza to take her shirt off. "But that's not what this is about. Why get it for a costume?"

"Well, I might do some more cosplay once I have more time, and it's just nice to have around for that?"

"Uh-huh." Lardo looped the binder around Eliza's chest and started tightening it. "Tell me if this gets uncomfortable."

There were several seconds of silence.

Lardo sighed heavily, her speech fully planned. "I've got a binder upstairs. It would probably be so small on you. Some days I wear it because looking down at my chest feels super weird, and I need to not have the tits hanging around down there. Is it something like that?"

Eliza blushed, visible in the dimness of the basement. "Well, no, I mean, maybe? I don't know."

Lardo finished clasping the binder and tightening the straps. "Take a feel of that before you put on the costume. I'd say don't tighten it any further, but you can loosen it if you have to.

"Just don't have gotten a binder for anyone but you." Like for Hammie, Lardo didn't say.

Eliza looked surprised. "Um, sure, yes." She stretched a bit, and picked up Luke's shirt.

Lardo dodged around to look at Eliza's face. "Hmm. I'll do your makeup." She considered the tools she would need. Peggy might have to go on a supply run for her, unless Mullet had some familiarity with Zara's. "J-Law won't be able to keep his eyes off of you when I'm done."

Eliza flinched slightly. "But John's parents told him he couldn't come out! They're going to be so angry-"

"What makes you think he's come out?" Lardo started to navigate the stairs. Maybe these old tights were a little too tight. "He's just the least subtle."

There was a huge sigh. "Yes, that's John. Why his parents thought that he'd be 'normal' after living across the ocean in France for three years, my dad will never know."

Lardo didn't say anything to Peggy when she reentered the kitchen, just waited until her phone started caterwauling Idina Menzel from the table. She listened with amusement as Angelica explained precisely why she shouldn't have referred to a binder the way she had. Peggy's apology was necessarily heartfelt. J-Law paused for a moment in thrashing his way into Han Solo's shirt to listen, and applauded when Angelica hung up. Peggy took a bow.

Eliza tried her best to be inconspicuous when she reentered the kitchen, but Hammie caught sight of her just over the threshold and attempted to whistle, which made J-Law crack up. A few minutes later, Eliza got her chance to whistle as Mullet carefully belted Hammie's dress to reveal a delicate waistline that complimented the dress very well.

"This is embarrassing," was Hammie's only comment, as Peggy and Eliza pointedly praised Mullet's sewing, and J-Law goggled. "And also heavy."

Peggy fell to their hair while Mullet made a run to Zara's for Lardo. If he hadn't been willing, she would have gone--this was not the weirdest outfit she'd ever worn on a shopping trip--but he also took the chance to pick up his costume, and returned with a leather jacket, eyepatch, and glue-on beard. J-Law took the job of explaining Nick Fury to Hammie, in between insisting that they had to watch _The Avengers_ at some point.

In the meantime, Lardo helped Hammie pack a bra--Shitty always had trouble doing it on his own, too--and started work on softening the lines of his face. J-Law watched in mild fascination as the process went forward, and took several pictures that sent the group chat into collective stitches. He read one out loud, saying, "Can the Mini-Matchmaker help me find a husband, too?" from Holster. Lardo made a few dire threats until he apologised. Ransom was confused when Lardo asked Holster to apologise to him as well.

Eliza spouted several new quotations for the Matchmaker to use at the kegster, while strands of straight black hair fell to the floor around her. She and J-Law tossed Disney trivia back and forth for a while, and Lardo kept having to ask Hammie to relax his face out of a confused frown so she could work properly.

Halfway through the process, as Peggy and Lardo were about to switch subjects, Bitty came jogging toward the Haus. Lardo stationed herself right inside the door when he opened it.

"Hm!" she snorted. "A _mi chang_ in search of a husband. Not my speciality, but I shall do my best."

Bitty just looked at her blankly.

"Okay, so that doesn't work." Lardo shrugged and went back to work on sharpening the angles of Eliza's face. Not that Bitty needed help getting a boyfriend; Ransom and Holster were more oblivious than usual if they hadn't noticed anything yet.

#

It was a mixed blessing to Jack that Halloween was on a Friday this year. It meant that Bitty had been more than happy to come home with him after the kegster, even though they both had games coming up. But it also meant that his younger teammates, most of whom had never attended college, had hopped on the idea of attending a college party as soon as Jack mentioned where he would be this weekend. In the end, the result had been the hasty borrowing of Thirdy's minivan and a rush down the highway after practice. Bitty had been ecstatic, and the team were in agonies of joy at the idea of hosting NHL players at their party. Holster had made the announcement that it would be epic on the group chat.

Jack hadn't made it down to campus all that much this term. As much as he would have liked to retreat to Bitty's room upstairs--especially after receiving a nervous selfie from Bitty at the end of practice--or hide in a private corner with his Alexander Hamilton biography, it was hard to put down his captain duties toward the Samwell team. Some of the Tadpoles didn't seem like the kind of kids Ransom and Holster would be able to connect to so easily, and Jack thought he could be the solution to that problem.

So he led his gawping teammates up to the Haus. They were a bit late, of course; the lights were already low in the living room, and Jack could almost feel the bass through the ground. Just like old times.

"Holy shit, this thing looks older than my fucking grandpa's house." Snowy, of course.

Jack heard Poots shove him. "Dude, you want to think about the word choice there?"

"Who fucking cares?"

"The college chicks we're about to meet?"

Tater gingerly tested one of the porch steps as Jack opened the door to guide the group inside. "Zimmboni, you are sure this holds our weight?"

Jack chuckled. "Wait until you see Holster before you decide what this porch can take."

A huge, booming voice yelled over the music, probably with Shitty's old megaphone, and Jack heard screams inside. "That was us getting announced." He gestured Snowy, Poots, Tater, and all the rest of the under-twenty-fives inside the Haus.

Only the British kid stayed beside Jack. Tater had had more trouble coming up with his nickname than 'Zimmboni', but had eventually decided that referring to a guy with the last name Church as 'Holy' was fine, pending a better idea. His presence surprised Jack, and he said as much.

He said something like, "Not good at talking."

"Then you don't have to talk." Jack thought about that for a moment. Not such a good plan, at a super social party; being a wallflower was nearly as bad as forcing yourself to be social. "Here: if you need to go, text me, and we'll go sit in the car with Bittle until the guys are all done."

Holy nodded. "That's the friend who's staying with you, right?"

"Yeah." Jack walked inside before Holy could say any more.

Bitty appeared at Jack's side almost immediately, flushed from either nervousness or alcohol, to chastise him about not making the guys all get in costume.

"Well, they're fine. Our shirts all say our name, so we're in costume as hockey players?"

Bitty managed to raise one eyebrow. "Coming as yourself doesn't count as dressing up."

Jack just shrugged.

"Ooh, come on, you have to meet some people!"

Bitty dragged Jack a little ways into the kitchen, where some of the Falconers guys stood chatting in the relative quiet. They worked fast. A black girl sporting a huge, artfully messy hair poof thing on the top of her head glided around Snowy to Bitty's side. "Ah, it's Shitty's 'perfect bro specimen'." She looked him over like he was a pie ingredient that might have gone bad.

Bitty shivered, setting his puck bunny ears shaking. "Too far in character," he said. "Jack, this is Angelica, who has apparently gone full Mrs. Lovett tonight."

"Huh?"

"Oh, he's like Hammie." Angelica checked her excessive black eyeshadow in the dark window. "Show him that sometime, for me, Bitty."

"A bit busy?" Bitty seemed a little put out by Angelica's dismissive attitude.

The stare she fixed him with, Jack was sure, could have melted a lesser man into slag. "You try having two troublemaking younger siblings loose in a crowd of people they trust implicitly."

"Are you implying that my Haus isn't safe for them?"

Angelica checked that her skirt wasn't caught on anything. "Of course, but I'm still keeping an eye on them!" She glided into the living room.

Bitty looked crestfallen. "See you later, Angelica!" His voice couldn't break over the music. "Oh well." He took Jack over to the table to see Ransom, who was trying to figure out tub juice. Jack didn't think his pointers were much help, but Bitty's terrified gestures behind Ransom's head disinclined him to be helpful. Jack mentioned that Tater was present, and Ransom's tub juice was forgotten. Bitty and Jack shared a high five.

Jack didn't mind that Bitty guided him through the crowded living room to meet a small guy dressed as Princess Leia and his friends, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. Jack was surprised when, after he asked whether Luke Skywalker was on the team, too, Han Solo burst out laughing. Luke Skywalker was a woman; one of Angelica's sisters. He promised her that he would give Lardo and Mullet all compliments about her costume. Princess Leia glowered when Han Solo told him to curtsy.

Tango was almost too overawed to ask him any questions. He wore the jersey that Whiskey had gotten Jack to sign, and had spraypainted his hair black. Badly. When he asked how his costume looked, Jack smiled and gave him two thumbs up. He imitated the gesture.

"It's like Freshman Holster all over again," he said to Bitty, as the crowd thickened between the two of them and Tango, who excitedly asked Whiskey something.

"No!" Bitty looked delighted.

"He got over it after the time he and Ransom forced me to look at something called 'fan fiction' that had me in it."

"No!" Bitty looked less delighted.

"Kent was in it, too."

"No!" Now Bitty looked positively livid. Jack kind of wanted to introduce the idea of escaping to Bitty's room, but it wasn't that late, and it would look suspicious for both of them to vanish already.

He spotted the tail of a white dress vanish into the kitchen. "Hey, you go be social. I'll be a loner in the kitchen."

Bitty smirked. "Have fun signing autographs all night, then." But he snatched his drink out of Jack's hand and vanished into the press.

Jack found Hammie sitting with J-Law in the kitchen. Hammie was trying desperately to scratch under the hair-bagels on the sides of his head. "Ugh! How did Peggy get these on so tight!" he groaned. "I didn't know I had this much hair on my head."

J-Law poked at one of the buns. "She's definitely good at hair."

"Enjoying yourselves?"

Both of them jumped out of their seats at the sight of Jack. "Uh, not right this second?" Hammie continued trying to scratch his head.

"You're going to make your hair all frizzy!" J-Law grabbed Hammie's hands and put them in his lap, then started to carefully scratch Hammie's temples. "Is that better?"

There was a brief silence. "Yeah. Yeah, that's good."

Jack chanced a look at Hammie's phone when he pulled it out. He was working on an essay in there; Jack had never seen anyone thumb-type so fast, even Bitty. "School's going okay for you two?" he asked.

Hammie glanced over at him, and earned a jab from J-Law for moving his head. "Ow! Uh, yeah. I like doing work."

"I hate it, but I'm survivin'," said J-Law. He looked far too pleased to be saying that, to Jack.

"Well, if doing hockey and school gets too much, you can get Bitty to ask me for help."

Hammie seemed amused. "Shouldn't we go to Ransom?"

Jack made a quick quelling gesture. "This team doesn't need a second coral reef, man!"

They both laughed, and Hammie nodded. "I'll do that. Hey, do you know a guy called George Wa-"

But, whoever Hammie was talking about, he was interrupted by a slowly rising noise behind them. It sounded like, "Zimmermaaaaaaaaaaa-"

Someone collided with the back of Jack's chair, and he spun around to see a kid with the most curls he'd ever seen babbling in Quebecois. <<How did Bitty not introduce us it's so cool to meet you in person. Do you want something to drink? I'm so happy, I can talk as fast as I like and someone will understand me for once.>>

<<I know how that feels,>> said Jack. Yes, he recognised Laffy. They'd talked a few more times since Bitty introduced them via phone. <<I'm fine, thanks. Who are you dressed as?>>

The boy looked down. He wore a brightly coloured blazer, half in green, half in a violent sort of pink, over a similarly bicoloured shirt. <<Oh! I'm Stromae tonight!>>

<<Excuse me?>> Jack wondered whether he'd misunderstood something.

<<A musician! He's so cool. I think Bitty would like him, too. I'll get him to look him up, and he'll tell you about him.>>

J-Law butted in. "Laffy, _lentement, s'il te plait. Tout le monde ne parle pas le Quebecois_."

"Ah, I myself remember! Eliza, uh, sent me to say that Maria is here, Hammie."

Alarm bells went off somewhere in the back of Jack's head. All these names sounded familiar, or like corruptions of names he knew. There was something up.

"Why?" Hammie looked confused.

"She said it would be understood by J-Law?"

Then Maria walked in, and Hammie and Laffy turned to gape while Jack watched Bitty appear in the doorway. All thought of whatever was up with the weird familiarity of this group went away beneath a wave of shock.

#

Bitty had tried to stall Maria. They had compared costumes out in the living room. Her laughter had a hysterical tinge when they posed together for selfies. Then she'd asked Holster where Hammie was, and been pointed to the kitchen, where J-Law had taken Hammie to 'talk', as he'd told Bitty, with a lascivious smile.

So Bitty was a little bit invested in J-Law getting the guy. He was allowed to be partisan in this, he thought, as he saw the engrossed expression on Hammie's face under Maria's concentrated efforts.

Maria swayed her hips back and forth while she lifted a beer and cracked the top. Bitty did have to admit that it was an artful display, leaving nothing to imagination with the loincloth, bared midriff, and bikini. How she'd made it look so metallic was a mystery, as was the sheer volume of hair contained in the thick braid down her back. Maria made the perfect Slave Leia, and she knew it.

Hammie couldn't take his eyes off of her; his arm was deflating one of his stuffed bra cups with its weight as he stared, twisted at a weird angle. Laffy also seemed struck dumb. J-Law was recovering, and Jack looked horrified. That was the expression Bitty saw on his face when something from the past had come to mind; eyes wide, pitying wince, leaning away. This sort of thing must have happened to him before.

"What do you think of my costume?" The expression on Maria's face was nothing like anything Carrie Fisher had ever come close to. Bitty and Jack made eye contact, and shared their panic for a moment.

J-Law spoke first. "Full points for execution, I'd say." He adopted a drawling, bored tone, the sort of thing Bitty thought people must take classes to perfect at private schools. All condescension. "But I have to say that you lose a few points for missing some aspects of the costume."

"Excuse me?"

J-Law mimed pulling back on something with both hands. "Leia's most iconic moment in that costume was when she slew Jabba the Hutt with her own chains; I would have added bloodstained gold chains to the costume for effect, and maybe a little less," he gestured in the general direction of her face, "that."

Maria rolled her eyes and sauntered right up to J-Law. "I do what I want, and this outfit has only one purpose."

"Seducing my boyfriend?" J-Law tried to place himself between Hammie and Maria.

Bitty blinked. This was a new development. Hammie clearly thought so, too. "Uh, excuse me." His voice squeaked slightly.

J-Law turned to him. "Can we please talk about it later?"

Maria evaluated the situation quicker than Bitty could believe. "Well," she said, and lounged against the counter. "Seems to me like it's Alexander's business who he wants to try on for size."

"Do you always talk like a porn star?" J-Law looked disgusted. Laffy looked like he was about to melt into the floor, and Jack shook him and pointed out the kitchen door. He barrelled out without a word.

"Only to get what I want."

Hammie looked from one of them to the other. "Uh, sorry, but I'm not a thing to be got?" He stood up, wobbling slightly from the combination of Go-Go boots and alcohol. Bitty knew that sensation. "And, seriously, not tonight. I have homework to do." He weaved out of the kitchen and nearly fell on Bitty. "Damn shoes!"

There was a momentary silence as Hammie pulled the front door closed behind him, broken by the throbbing beat from the living room. Maria and J-Law both looked shocked. Then Jack applauded slowly. "Hey, Bittle, congratulate Hammie on that one for me, okay?"

Bitty laughed. "Only you, Jack." But he pulled his phone out from one of his costumes butt pockets and fired off a text to Hammie.

J-Law seemed spurred by the motion. He hurried out of the room after Hammie. Maria sank into a chair. Bitty sat down next to her.

Holster sent a text to the group chat: "Princess Leua and Han Soli just left. Deets?"

Nursey replied a few seconds later: "i would watch a movie about multiple han solos if it was called han soli"

Bitty added a chick emoji.

Meanwhile, Jack leaned over to Maria. "What was up with that?"

She looked down her nose at him. "Excuse me?"

"That was the most incredible seduction act I've ever seen, and I don't believe a moment of it." There. Bitty could be the blunt one. "What's Hammie got for you?"

"None of your business."

"Is it Ransom and Holster's business, then? It's affecting the team, so it must be someone's business."

Maria stood up. "It's between me and my sisters, so I'm leaving now." She stalked out the kitchen door, and snarled at the poor Falconer who tried to say hello.

As she left, Angelica stalked past her, just as angry, and into the kitchen. She looked around, almost vibrating with suppressed nervous energy. She looked vampiric in costume and under the glare of the kitchen light, Bitty thought.

Her intense gaze fixed on Bitty. "Have you seen Peggy at all?" she asked. It didn't seem anyone else had. "I just saw someone from the Lacrosse Team wearing a horrible mask and copping a feel on March. Peggy doesn't know the groin-attack-headlock defense yet, and I didn't assign a TAT girl to do it for her." She paused. "By the way, Holster might want to remove the groaning pile of human garbage from his dance floor."

Jack and Bitty looked at each other as Angelica paced the tiny kitchen floor. Bitty had last seen Peggy demonstrating the tightness of her Wonder Woman costume to Laffy and Tango, who had looked ready to explode. "Did you text her?"

"Yes, and I got a keyboard smash in response." Angelica pulled out her phone and glared at it as if it was the source of all her problems. "Can you read this mess?"

Bitty took a look at the text message. "'Outside with a British guy, come say hi!'" he read. It was a bit of a mess of chatspeak, but hardly unreadable.

"That's what that little flag means, okay." Angelica stilled for the first time since entering the kitchen.

Nursey's voice sailed into the kitchen over the murmur of voices in the yard. "Hey, leave her alone!"

Angelica turned and fled the kitchen with a genuine growl.

#

Nursey had done his best to convince Aaron to come to the kegster, and hopefully leave with him afterwards, but Aaron never was much of a party guy, so Nursey had been foiled. That had sort of ruined his taste for fooling around with anyone. To make it all worse, Dex had been assigned for Nursey Patrol tonight, which even made drinking less fun. So the two of them were sitting in the yard, watching couples leave the kegster and arguing about their costumes.

"I could totally have pulled off Black Widow. If Hammie can be Princess Leia..." The two of them had just watched Hammie stomp away from the Haus, carrying his shoes in one hand. Instead of dressing as Black Widow, Nursey had gotten a stupid-looking hat and dressed up as a _Pokemon_ character.

"Nurse, putting you in skintight black leather would look more like a guy from _The Matrix_ than a girl superhero." Dex had expressed no interest in theming his costume with Chowder and Nursey, then shown up tonight in a ratty black hoodie with ears on it. He claimed to be a Mightyena. Nursey had decided never to mention Pokemon gijinkas to Dex ever.

Nursey stood up briefly. "Do those guys in _The Matrix_ do this?" He dropped into the hip-spreading, chest-pushing crouch that Scarlet Johanssen used so often, and glared at Dex like he was the camera.

Dex gagged. "Never do that again."

Nursey was dusting his hands off when he heard a girl say something behind him. "Hey, let go! Let! Go!"

He spun around. Just visible in the gloom was a girl trying to grab some creep's hands away from her waist. "Hey, leave her alone!" yelled Nursey, and every eye in the yard turned to look. Someone turned on the camera on their phone.

The girl shoved the mask up from the guy's face to reveal the handsome face of George Hanover, professional party crasher and LAX bro, currently contorted as he fought with the girl, who tried to pull herself out of his grasp and revealed her profile to the camera.

Peggy Schuyler froze, and George Hanover kept pawing at the waist of her Wonder Woman costume. Nursey and Dex were halfway across the yard to tackle him before a voice behind them silenced the entire yard.

"You bastard."

Angelica delicately navigated her long skirt down the steps of the porch as someone turned a camera on her. "Talk about tremendously bad press," she continued, crossing the yard. "You crashed a party that wasn't even invite-only, got kicked out by sorority girls, and tried to get revenge like this? I thought that your dad taught you how to fuck people over better than that."

She passed the dumbstruck Dex and Nursey without a second glance. George's mouth was hanging open, and he didn't protest when Peggy broke his grip and scurried, sobbing, into her sister's quick hug. Inside, Nursey heard someone yell about a fight going down in the yard.

"Or did you learn more about this sort of fuckery from David Cameron? Wow, so counter-culture, you are, going for a girl like she's a slab of meat rather than just fucking a pig's mouth."

Angelica stopped five feet from George and looked at him like he was the dog crap on the bottom of her shoe. "Was it your charming face or your charming personality that failed to get you anyone willing to touch you tonight? Would anyone even touch you, or does their skin crawl away too fast?

"So you just had to try on my sister. Good pick: she's naive, a little bit selfish, and she loves being told she's beautiful. Perfect prey for you and other rapists like you."

George rose to his full height and made to turn around. "I don't need to listen to this." He snarled at one of the people filming, and they fled.

"Stop!" Angelica's voice froze the wave of people spilling out of the Haus to watch. George growled, saw more cameras light up in the audience, and turned back to Angelica. Nursey pulled Dex into the crowd, and started working his way around to block the way out of the yard.

"I always knew you were stupid, George, but I never knew for sure that you were actually just garbage." Angelica's voice rose to an orator's volume and tempo. She turned to her audience. "It's a garbage sort of thing to do to make a person a thing for you to control, and I've rarely seen such a fine example of trash.

"Now, you could have had your pick of girls tonight. Many of us would have elbowed you, reported you to our girlfriends, and avoided you, because that's what we have to do to stay alive with manbabies like you in existence. But you were smart enough to find someone young, impressionable, and seemingly defenseless." Angelica clapped twice. George just glared at her, unmoving.

"Now, my sister started this evening innocent and lively. She knows she's smart and she knows how to make herself pretty. So she did, tonight, because it's a college party, all for fun. And now you've torn that out of her, and that was a very stupid thing to do.

"I know you've probably done that to many girls, and boys, too, since you started at Samwell. Most of them will never say anything about it. That's the way the world works. Maybe someone did the same thing to you. Probably not, since you're a straight white man with money from the First World. But here's the new paradigm, you idiot: me.

"You fucked with my sister, so here I am to fuck you up. I will destroy you, George Hanover, for tonight." Angelica smiled at him in the light of a dozen phone cameras. "I will dig up every bit of dirt on you, get you suspended from the lacrosse team using my sister's evidence, and then pack you back to England to face charges for every toe you've put out of line. Until five minutes ago, you weren't worth my time, even though I was worth yours to try and destroy for daring to be a woman challenging you. Now, I've decided that your destruction is worth my time, and you'll find that I'm way better at this than you are.

"Now, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the best way to get rid of a fuckboy." Angelica made eye contact with every single camera light in the yard in sequence, and reached into the purse hanging from her arm. "Good riddance!" She threw something at George.

Nursey saw a long shape hit George in the chest. George grabbed it and looked at it in confusion before terrified realisation dawned, and he dropped it like it was on fire. He almost jumped over the crowd trying to get away and back to the LAX house.

There was a long silence in the yard, and someone beside Nursey whispered, "Marry me."

Nursey turned to see one of the Falconers' defensemen, Church, standing beside him and gazing worshipfully at Angelica, who was bending down in the dust to pick up what she had thrown at George. Her head snapped up, and she looked straight at him. With a squeak, he backed away into the crowd.

Someone in the crowd started clapping, and then someone else, until there was a roar of acclaim for Angelica. Dex reappeared beside Nursey. "What did she throw at him?" he asked.

"Let's ask." Nursey dodged out of the crowd and beside Angelica.

"Bro, that was incredible," he said. "Ultra mega chill burn right there."

She grinned at him and gave him a quick hug. "I don't know where it came from." She sounded out of breath from the extended oration. "I need to find Peggy." She turned and hugged Dex, too.

Nursey jumped up beside her as she turned toward the Haus. "What did you throw at him?"

She laughed. "Something that works on a whole lot of guys." She reached into her purse again and held up a packaged tampon.

#

The party continued in the living room, Lardo knew, completely separate from the more intimate gathering in the kitchen. Bitty had sent Jack to fetch the rest of the Falconers--it was approaching midnight, and hockey pros needed their sleep, Lardo would have mandated the same in George's position--so only current Samwell students stood in the kitchen.

Peggy had found the long sky blue cardigan Eliza had arrived at the Haus in in the afternoon, and she sat in one of the chairs at the kitchen table, breathing like she'd just run a marathon. Tango sat beside her, with Whiskey. Dex had vanished somewhere, probably to help remove the LAX party crashers with Ransom and Holster. Nursey, finished telling Bitty what happened by the sink, stood awkwardly near the door. Lardo was perched on the counter, in a small space she had cleared of half-full Solo cups. Bitty had glared at her, but she had just shrugged.

All the floor space was occupied by Angelica's presence. She frantically thumb-typed into her phone, standing tall in the centre of the floor, resplendent in her Mrs. Lovett gown.

"Why did you go outside with him?" Tango asked Peggy.

Whiskey poked Tango hard in the shoulder as Peggy replied. "He was so nice, and I couldn't hear him with the music, and I thought there were plenty of people who would see if anything happened out there." She pulled the cardigan closer to her.

Bitty gave Tango a hard look. "Not the time, hon," he said, and handed Peggy a glass of water. "Oh, I'm so sorry, darling. It was our party, too."

"Not your fault." Angelica tapped one last time on her phone. "Creeps happen at all parties; this one just went viral." She turned her phone around and showed a YouTube page to them. Lardo leaned forward to get a good look at the dark, grainy video. It was Angelica yelling at George, from a fair distance, and over a bunch of heads, but it was there.

Angelica smirked. "All the TAT girls are on the lookout for him, and I'll get the other sororities and frats after him tomorrow. Once Peggy makes a statement to the police, we can really get to work." She cracked her knuckles.

Lardo raised a finger. There were problems with a minor telling the police that she was at a party filled with alcohol at the local frat house.

"I'll find some kind of plausible reason she attended, Larissa, don't worry." As usual, Angelica read minds.

The kitchen door burst open, and Eliza almost fell through in her haste to get to Peggy. "Oh my God, people were talking out there, and I thought- well, anyway." She hugged her sister and backed up to the wall. She looked to Angelica. "What's the plan?"

"Search and destroy." Angelica held up the video again for Eliza to see. "We have publicity, and I'm going to get as many execs as I can to help. If I could get you to find any incriminating personal details." Eliza gave her a grave thumbs up.

"And Peggy?"

Peggy looked up. She'd barely moved when Eliza hugged her, and she didn't react to Whiskey's soothing hand on her back.

"Peggy, can I get you to put out some feelers to find other people who can say things about George? I've heard some horror stories about his party behaviour, but it's all second-hand."

Peggy nodded.

Nursey rolled his eyes. "Fuckin' Schuyler sisters."

Lardo turned to him. "They did this in high school?"

"Fuck yes. God forbid the Schuylers dislike you, 'cause they will destroy you."

"Yeah, I've seen Angel and Eliza do this sort of tag-team, but it's worse with Peggy?"

Nursey snorted. "Peggy's the one you should fear the most."

"I heard that!" Peggy stood up from the chair. She still clutched the cardigan, but she made her way to the cupboard under the sink where Bitty had stowed all the guests' bags. "And I agree." She blew Nursey a shaky kiss.

The kitchen door creaked open again, and Jack came in, followed by a few of the Falconers.

"Time to go?" Bitty dashed for the stairs when Jack nodded. "Just let me change!" he called back into the kitchen. Judging by Jack's face, Lardo didn't think he really wanted Bitty to change, and she hoped for Jack's sake that Bitty was planning on packing his costume up to Providence with him.

She turned back to see one of the Falconers approach Angelica. Lardo had seen him follow the crowd outside earlier, and now he shuffled his feet on the tile. Peggy had engaged in conversation with Whiskey, Tango, and Eliza. It sounded like Eliza had asked where her Leia and Han had run off to. Lardo turned to Jack and Nursey.

"Well, something always happens at a kegster," she said. Behind her, the Falconer started to speak to Angelica in a very quiet voice.

Nursey snickered, but Jack looked distracted. "Huh? Yeah, I guess," he said. "There was a lot going on tonight."

Lardo didn't doubt it. She restrained herself from smirking at Jack as he looked back towards the stairs.

Bitty was down shortly, and the Falconers bundled themselves out the door after hasty goodbyes and a few traded phone numbers. Angelica looked particularly smug, and waved to the Falconer who had edged up to talk to her before. He blushed scarlet.

The Schuylers didn't return to the party. In fact, they convinced Dex to take them up to Chowder's room so they could plot. Lardo chuckled when, over the music, she heard a trio of voices yell something about blue sharks. Lardo was about to guide Nursey and Dex back into the party when she got a call on her phone. Shitty called rarely enough that she accepted immediately.

"Yo, Lards, how's the kegster?" Shitty sounded sad, and there was definitely the sound of shifting paper in the background.

"No to tub juice, yes to invading LAX bros." If Peggy wanted to share what had happened to her, that was her info to share.

"What the fuck? I thought they knew not to come to our parties."

"Angelica drove them off."

Shitty whistled loudly, and Lardo was glad there wasn't anyone else around to see her smile gently through her makeup. "Man, I love that girl. She sent all the Andover kids a pic of her costume earlier. Looks pretty 'swawesome. Great for beating some LAX bro butt."

"Yeah, it was." Lardo had seen the video.

"Anyway, George just got a text from his boy Ham-"

"What are you implying, Knight?"

"Anyway, George wanted to know if anything's going on down there, because Hammie texted him to ask about how first relationships should work."

Lardo burst out laughing. She was still laughing when Shitty said, "Lardo? You still in that laughing head?"

"Yes. And that is," she chuckled again, "so not my story to tell. Get George to ask Hammie about it himself. Nothing unsafe is happening, though."

Lardo's phone buzzed, and she took a look at the screen. There was a text from Johnson: "There are a million things going on right now."

"No shit, man," she muttered.

"You still there, Lards?"

"Yep!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, please find the artwork here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8443531, and please tell setyourlazerstopew how amazing their work is! Look how adorable A.Ham is there.
> 
> So, my beta and I are being crushed by the weight of the school year and will be sitting down to edit this again at some point in the near future. The plot won't be changing, but several scenes might, and I will be posting all of that up here. If you want to be updated when that happens (because I don't know if Ao3 notifies for those things) come over to my Tumblr: http://cresselian.tumblr.com/
> 
> Now, this story is incomplete as it stands (I only had time to write up to Halloween before the school year started), and is only about a third of the story I wanted to tell. I'm not familiar with the Ao3 system, so would it be more efficient to post more chapters in this fic or create a series for this universe?
> 
> In addition, how do you think the balance of Check Please! and Hamilton characters is? Did I do write with the way I used perspective? Is there anything suuuper weird that I should reevaluate for when I keep writing?
> 
> Thank you for reading, and can I hopefully thank you for a quick comment to? (I say, as I forget to leave comments on all the beautiful fics I read)


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